


Force of Nature: Earthquake

by Jenna Hilary Sinclair (JennaHilary)



Series: Force of Nature [1]
Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Force of Nature, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:23:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 274,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaHilary/pseuds/Jenna%20Hilary%20Sinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Earthquake, the first of a trilogy of Brokeback Mountain-inspired novels, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar have moved together to Eagle Nest, New Mexico. Jack has a job at a cattle feedlot, Ennis has a job at a horse ranch, and Ennis trains problem horses in the pasture behind their leased house. Here, in the twenty-first year of their tumultuous relationship, Jack and Ennis learn how to live together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Signed On

**Author's Note:**

> Force of Nature is a Brokeback Mountain-inspired trilogy. The three novels are titled:  
> Force of Nature: Earthquake  
> Force of Nature: Storm  
> and  
> Force of Nature: Fire  
> Earthquake is complete. Storm is lacking only the final chapter, which I hope to write (as of 04/07/13.) I also hope to write Fire. The story arc continues across all three novels, but each novel does come to some conclusion. I will post chapter by chapter.  
> Earthquake is approximately 270,000 words in 16 chapters.  
> Rating: There are unabashed and explicit depictions of male/male sex in this novel, so please read with that in mind. Do not read if you are legally unable to do so in your jurisdiction.  
> Credit: You all understand that these aren’t my characters, right? Annie Proulx created them, and all credit goes to her and to the creative team at Focus Features that made Brokeback Mountain come to life on the screen. No copyright infringement is intended from this piece, nor is any money whatsoever being made. I write from the desire to become a better writer, and from love, and from the burning need in my heart to give Jack and Ennis something quite different from what appears in the original short story and the movie: a life together.  
> Feedback: Yes, please, that would be delightful!  
> Editing: At various times over the last several years, Force of Nature was edited by Amy, Beth, Cath, Elke, and Shelley. As time went on, the magnificent Beth became my mainstay editor. I owe all of these wonderful women my love and gratitude.

PROLOGUE: LOOKOUT POINT and CHAPTER ONE: SIGNED ON

PROLOGUE: LOOKOUT POINT

I tried really hard not to show Daddy how I felt that day he told me. Sitting there on the sofa next to him, listening, I felt a chill come over me. I managed to keep my hands from shaking until I walked out to the car, and then it felt like the whole world was falling down around me. 

I can still hear his voice saying he loved Mister Twist. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget. At the time I remember thinking that it didn’t sound like him, because how was it possible he was saying those words? I knew he loved me, loved Jenny, and I sort of thought he’d loved Mama back when we were young, but to hear him say this thing that made him so different…. I wondered if I knew him at all. 

He said that in what was important, he was gay. I scarcely knew what that meant. A man with a man…. What reason did I have to consider it? He forced my nose into it, and I didn’t want to go there. It felt…dirty. What daughter wants to be thinking on the sex habits of her parents? He made me do that. 

That was months ago, and now, looking back, I can say that I’m grateful. I feel like I’ve grown up a lot since that day in December 1983. I was still a teenager then, but seven months later I feel like a woman. Facing tough things: I guess that’ll do it for you. That and turning twenty.

Daddy and me, we’ve always got on, even during those long years when I didn’t see him much after the divorce. I got busy with school stuff and my friends, and he never pushed. I’m sorry to think that I was so selfish, when he was living out there in that little rundown dump of a house, with just his horses to keep him company. Too often I said _No, Daddy, I’m busy, I can’t see you this month._

It took me a while to see how quiet he’d got over the last years, even quieter than he usually was. Sad. I still don’t know exactly why he was like that, but it had to be something to do with Mister Twist, who lived in Texas. Daddy must have been yearning after him, since they didn’t see much of each other. 

I didn’t do anything about Daddy and his loneliness until I graduated high school. Shame on me. I remember how his eyes smiled on me the first time I drove out his way with some fried chicken, not judging that this was so unusual for me to be visiting, just happy to take what I could give him. Maybe that’s part of this growing-up business too, realizing that your parents have their own needs, and maybe you can help them out, give a little of yourself and not just take. It wasn’t a big deal, just dinners on most Saturdays, and he never did say much, as that’s not his way. I’ve heard more of his words on the phone since he went away than I ever heard over beef stew or spaghetti. 

Sometimes I ask myself why I love him the way I do. What is it about a mother and a father that makes us love them? Is it our thankfulness? Habit? The way we know they’ll care no matter what? Just long years spent together? I have all those things, except not for the long years with him, but him and me, everybody’s always said how alike we are. And I don’t mind that. I wonder if I have boys, though, what that might mean for their granddad to be that way. 

Once he told me, I kept trying to understand it. All those years and all those fishing trips I was scarcely aware of, when something powerful kept pulling the two of them together…. 

Mister Twist and Daddy, they’re living together in the same house these days, and I guess sleeping in the same bed, too, down in New Mexico. Daddy sounds different and not in a bad way. Too much to say happy, cause I think he guards his words when he’s talking to me on the phone, not wanting to make things obvious, but I can tell. Life is better for him.

And Mister Twist isn’t just some name now, neither. I’ve seen his picture. Daddy came up for Jenny’s play this past March, and on Saturday morning him and me went for a walk before I headed for my shift at the Dairy Queen. He pulled out his wallet without me even asking and said, _You wanted to see what Jack looks like, right? Here he is._

It took some courage to look, because I knew looking would make it real. I made up my mind to say something nice even if I had no reason to do so, as I could tell this was important to Daddy. But Mister Twist is a fine-looking man, with dark hair and pretty eyes and a big smile that made a person want to smile back, even though it was just a little black and white picture like you get from one of those booths at a mall. For just a minute, looking, I said to myself that this was the person my daddy kissed, the person he…. For that time it was like the ground under my feet wasn’t steady. A daughter shouldn’t have to face those thoughts, you know? But a grown woman, with a daddy who almost drank himself to death because he was so sad to be parted from the man he told me he loved, she faces those things. 

_He’s so handsome,_ I told Daddy as I held the picture up to the sunlight to see it better. _You think so?_ he asked me, all shy like. _You know he is,_ I said, and it was strange saying that, like I was his age and stood on the same footing in the world. _He has beautiful eyes. What color are they?_

__

They’re blue, Daddy said, and he looked down to where his feet were finding their way over the cracks in the pavement. The catch in his voice told me he was embarrassed to be saying that, to be knowing Mister Twist’s eye color. But then he went on. _The truest blue color, like the sky._ He said that like the words meant something special. 

I kept looking, wanting to fix his face in my mind, but Daddy held out his hand, and so I gave the picture back to him. He tucked it away in his wallet with care. _You think I’ll ever meet him?_ I asked. I didn’t know that I wanted to, though. 

Daddy shook his head and said _ah, Junior, there ain’t no need. You’re kind just to be looking on this._

Not so kind. Curious, and worried some, that whether Daddy was happy or not depended on this person I didn’t know. Worried even more over this AIDS thing, but I’ve promised not to let that fill my mind. 

Lots of days, I wish none of this had happened and Daddy was still living outside Riverton where I could bring him Saturday supper, but then I stop those thoughts. They’re just selfish, even though I do miss him bad and wish I could see him. If he can be happy working on his little horse business so far away, not trying to drown his pain with liquor but instead smiling shy like he did when he showed me that picture, and even though that means him doing all those things I try not to think of that he does cause he is a gay man, well, then I ain’t got no right to want anything different for him.

I doubt that Daddy asked for this to happen to him, and I won’t give him more grief than he’s lived with already. Looking back, I know it’s caused him a lot of sorrow, but now it seems he’s determined to make something good out of what he is. I remember telling him that there are some things we can’t help feeling, like how I felt when Troy broke up with me or how glad I was when Kurt turned his eyes my way. I figure that’s the way it is with him and Mister Twist. A thing like what they got, it just is, like the breeze in your face on a winter day or the sun shining in the morning. Not one of us can stand against God’s nature. 

I love him; nothing will ever change that. And I hope everything’s going all right with Daddy and Mister Twist down in New Mexico. 

*****

CHAPTER ONE: SIGNED ON

Ennis woke up slowly. His left hand resting in front of him came aware first. Then the quiver of morning slid across his bare shoulders. The waking went down one leg and up the other as he pushed them both straight and then pulled them back to where he was curled on his side, under the warm covers. Finally he became aware of his ass, alive with a background ache he didn’t mind since it brought last night alive again. He smiled at the memory, but then he squelched that small curving of his lips in favor of a sigh. He was full awake now. 

Five days on his own. Not what he’d signed on for. Shit.

He pulled the quilt up, tucking it under his chin, and moved just his eyes to the fancy digital clock on the nightstand, silver and black with a built-in AM-FM radio. The green numbers showed 7:14 a.m. That was way late even for a Sunday, as normally he was out every day with the sun rising or lots of time before then, leaving Jack behind snoring. That clock had been some so-called wedding gift from not-donkey-dong Gary Shelborne, making a joke Ennis didn’t appreciate. Shelborne was the last man who’d had Jack and Jack’s ass before Ennis moved in and claimed them both permanently. Except Jack would take issue with that language. He could imagine Jack’s voice saying that he was his own man and nobody had him, but he would share with who he wanted to share with, and Ennis had better see the difference. 

Ennis saw that difference clearly, though it had taken him more than twenty years to get things straight in his head. He brushed his lips against the quilt at that word. Straight was one thing he wasn’t never gonna be, but the result of his thinking and growing and knowing was the last three and a half months in New Mexico living with Jack. Jack was sharing with him. Fine. Mighty fine. 

As he thought on Jack in this bed they both slept in, his dick stirred like it was on automatic. All parts of him wanted, cause he didn’t like being left alone. He reached down to take it in hand, half-hard despite last night. They’d gone to bed early knowing Jack had to be up by four-thirty, but they’d kept each other awake anyhow, facing each other on their sides, indulging in long kisses Ennis stored up. He’d run his hands down Jack’s arms. He sure favored the hair on those arms; it reminded him that he was with a man, and he did like running his fingers over that hairy skin. 

Never had let himself just indulge like that in the before times, him and Jack in the wilderness, hiding out in open space, but he was different now, had learnt. Jack favored being kissed, and Ennis saw the point. Kissing was some sweet torture in this sweet life they were living, to be so close but not touching in nothing but their lips and hands, over and over, tasting Jack’s sweet taste, sharing whatever his own was that he hoped Jack didn’t mind. Testing the limits, hearing the master bedroom fill up with their breathing getting deeper and more needful, a master bedroom that was odd with no bathroom attached, but it came with two masters, because him and Jack, together, that’s the way it was. 

Jack had cracked before he had. He’d smoothed his hand up to Ennis’s shoulder and pushed, whispered, “Will you roll over for me?” 

Didn’t mind doing that, more regular than it’d been before but still something special, seemed so for both of them. Ennis rolled from his left side to his right. There were some long moments of slicking up and stretching out behind him, and then he took in a breath cause there Jack was, knocking on the door. A couple seconds later he was pushing in. Ennis grunted, trying to go soft down there and open up for his man.

This last fuck had to last for a while, since they were going down from nights filled up with each other to zero. A phone call might be there for the voice, but that wouldn’t be much help when it came to the body’s need. So they did it slow, no hurry, even though the minutes were ticking away. If they were reasonable, they would be sleeping. Jack’s arm came around his waist, and Ennis held it there. No big strokes, just tiny pushes and pulls, enough so Ennis felt that space Jack was claiming in him but good. Good space.

Jack kissed between his shoulder blades. “How’d I go without you,” he murmured. “Long times apart. How’d we ever….” 

Familiar words Ennis had heard before, and he wished Jack would stop saying them. If he could change things, he would. Three and a half months when they could have had this for twenty-one years. That was a pain that wouldn’t ever go away.

More kisses, sucking, and a trail of fire across his shoulders. “Sweetheart,” Jack said. “Honeybunch. Light of my life. Let me….” 

His hand dropped to Ennis’s dick, ready to go even with Jack talking nonsense, and in just a few minutes he had Ennis gasping and curling his toes, a stream of relief spurting out, red hot and scalding. It was pulled up from where there wasn’t any cold, not with Jack around. 

And then more heat flowed into him to replace what had just left. Jack pushed so hard he shoved Ennis a half-foot across their white sheets, and his forehead pressed tight against Ennis’s back. Like he always said, Jack let out with, “Here I go, can’t stop it. Ennis!” 

That’s what Ennis took with him as he fell into sleep even before Jack had gone soft and pulled out, knowing that neither of them could stop it. 

During the night he’d warmed himself a good comfort spot under the blue and white quilt they’d picked up from a roadside display on the outskirts of Taos, but the morning air coming through the screen of the half-open window was cool on his face. He let his dick be and rolled up to sit with his legs over the side, feeling like he hadn’t slept at all instead of sleeping too hard and too long. Some of his come from the night before had dried on his stomach and was itchy, so he scratched as the clock seemed to stare back at him. He reached out to wipe a layer of dust off the number display and wished he hadn’t slept in. He felt low about that. That was like some man who had no ambition or thoughts for the future. A man who was working two jobs and needed to have both of them turn out good shouldn’t be sleeping in. 

He hadn’t even heard Jack leave, he’d been that worn-out. Those two jobs took some energy, it was true. His work at the Cross B Buckminster ranch had the owners relying on him for way more than he’d ever been relied on before, and he was not gonna disappoint. Even weightier was what he was trying to do on his own early mornings, evenings, and weekends. Training his own horses, getting them ready to sell, that took time and attention.

But the three horses in the old stable out back didn’t know the difference between Sunday and any other day. For sure they were waiting for him right now, hanging their heads over the stall doors and wondering where the hell he was. Samson wasn’t gonna feed himself. Delilah wasn’t gonna get under the saddle on her lonesome. If he didn’t stir himself, he would never make anything of himself and would stay a good-for-nothing, boil-on-a-rat’s-ass Wyoming cowboy. If he wanted to be somebody for John Henry Twist, Junior to be proud of it, he had to get up and do things. 

Ennis reached back to put a hand on the other side of the bed. Cold, as he expected. 

He found his way to the kitchen, yawning and stretching his arms over his head so his fingertips brushed the ceiling. One look at the brand new coffeemaker with its ready light on told him somebody’d been there before him, making up and leaving a full pot for his purposes. He poured himself some, using his old mug with spiderweb cracks inside, stained brown, a reminder of eight solid years of living alone, and then he leaned over the sink and peered out the little curtained window. 

Baldy Peak was in his sight, but he paid it no mind. Instead, his eyes took in the side yard, checking that all was as it should be. They didn’t have any cats to keep the rodents in check, and they didn’t have any dogs to raise the alarm either for predators or any human beasts. That made him uneasy, what with him and Jack living together with no explaining and the nearest neighbor half a mile away. The _Sangre De Cristo Chronicle_ had started up a column from the police blotter, and Ennis had noted one assault of a man for no good reason just off the Angel Fire town center, and then four break-ins at places like theirs, off the beaten track. Food had been taken along with lots of other stuff, which made him think it was done by fellas down on their luck, but even so, it paid to be careful.

All looked like it should this morning. There were no trash cans upended from raccoons or skunks, no coyote sign or mountain lion, not that he expected them to be standing in the yard announcing themselves. Anyway, he figured he could leave Jack’s shotgun where it was under the bed and his own rifle that he kept in the kitchen closet next to the broom. Jack’d stashed his rifle in the stable, there in case of need, though Ennis didn’t expect to come face to face with a bear again in his life. More likely they might someday find a snake in the stable. It was the coyotes and the people he was most concerned about. He dropped the curtain and then wandered to the bathroom to piss, shave, and take a shower. 

Fifteen minutes later his thermos wasn’t where he expected it to be at the side of the sink, but then he remembered he’d told Jack to take it so he didn’t fall asleep on one of those curves in the road. He’d taken his truck out in the dark before dawn. Jack’d kissed his knee, which at the time’d been in a convenient spot to do so, and said that he had no intention of making Ennis a widower anytime soon. Ennis shook his head; there wasn’t a superstitious bone in Jack’s body, and he’d laughed when Ennis had tried to shush him. He’d probably react differently if Ennis mentioned a no-hitter that the Cardinals had going in the seventh inning. Talking about a no-hitter in progress was a the big taboo for baseball fans.

Ennis smirked at that thought. Might want to do that if he ever had the chance, see how Jack would squawk about jinxing his favorite team. He went down on his knees searching for the other thermos in one of the lower cabinets, found it, and filled it up. Coffee would keep him through the morning, with no Jack around to nag him about eating. 

The side door closed behind him with a bang on this quiet morning, and he scuffed through the yard’s dirt and grass toward the stable. He tucked the thermos under his arm, settled his hat on tight, and then stopped as was his habit right in the middle to take a lungful of sweet mountain air. Still fresh, without the dusty smell it often got mid-afternoon when the heat raised up. Even in this high valley, more than eight thousand feet up, with far Baldy and Wheeler Peaks poking far higher, it got plenty warm in summer. Though not nearly so baked-heat as in Riverton. 

He felt the air he breathed go all the way down into him. All those years of going out to the mountains for his one week of breathing at a time, with Jack, and now here they were, at altitude, living out those dreams he’d never even let himself think on. Breathing easy. Sometimes Ennis woke up in the middle of the night, rolled over to see Jack in the bed next to him, and thought this couldn’t be real. Cause how was it possible for a man to have this kind of feeling every day? 

The summer-pink flowers of locust bushes caught his eye, and he looked over toward the grove of scrub oak and pine that marked the property line, that they’d taken to calling their forest. It ran a good distance, from the county road, then past the house, and then back a ways beyond the stable, where the track he took the horses on went to the foothills. The acorns of the oaks attracted the deer, but there wasn’t any sign of them now. One of those gray squirrels that so loved the Ponderosa pines that rose higher than the oaks was chittering, and Ennis watched it launch from one limb to the other, looking in mid-air like it was flying. 

Standing here staring wasn’t getting the work done. He took himself off again to the stable and outbuildings that had sealed the deal when they’d been looking for a place to live. Town and Country Realtors, headquartered in Eagle Nest, New Mexico just a few miles down the road, hadn’t shown him and Jack anything better for what they were willing to pay, and so they’d closed on a one-year lease. Ennis still wasn’t sure if that’d been a mistake or not. 

He turned around and walked backward, his eyes on the one-story house they were living in. The house wasn’t right, and he felt bad about that. Low ceilings, not enough windows so it was dark inside, an odd arrangement of rooms, a general air of being run down so the place showed every one of its forty-five years. Jack had sacrificed, there wasn’t any question, though not one word of complaint about it had escaped the man’s lips since they’d moved here. That was unusual, and Ennis wondered what it might mean. Jack tended to bring complaining to a high art form. If they’d stayed in Amarillo, they’d be in Jack’s fine townhouse, that to Ennis’s mind suited Jack better.

He wished he could fix the house situation for Jack, and he had intentions to do so. Jack had got used to higher living. There was no way that Ennis wanted his man to feel like he’d come down. It was bad enough that Jack had stooped to living with a dumbass ranch hand who only now was able to read cause he’d been so stubborn for years about getting glasses. Maybe, if this training horses thing on the side worked the way he thought it might, by the time next April rolled around they could count on some extra income coming their way. Then they’d look for something better, more like what Jack was accustomed to. 

Ennis unlatched and then opened the stable door, clucking in the way he had of letting the horses know he was there and hadn’t forgotten them even though he was hours later than usual. He wouldn’t let that happen again and wasn’t gonna let up just cause Jack wasn’t around to see his efforts. The sharp, kind of sour smell of horses that seemed to have been with him all his life hit his nose, and the yellow morning light followed him inside. 

He went up to Samson in his stall, the tall bay gelding he’d bought in the auction over by Cimarron. He’d been mostly skin and bones then, and nobody’d wanted to take a chance on him. Ennis got him for a song. He’d already fattened up fine and was coming along. He had a good gait too and should sell well when the time came, pretty soon. The horse nickered softly and butted his muzzle into Ennis’s hand. 

“Hey, there,” Ennis murmured. “Did you think I was some goner? Lit out somewhere and paid you no mind?” 

He balanced the thermos up on a post so he could stroke the soft skin and feel horse breath against his fingers. It was like velvet with little whiskers there on most horses, though the softest ever had been Judd, one of those he’d sold off in Riverton so he could make the trip south to Jack. He did regret Judd, it was true, but….

There was some sound from behind him, probably Delilah wanting her share of attention, getting ready to stamp and demand it. Ennis stepped back so he could see Samson’s filled-out form, knowing some pride that he’d been able to save the gelding from the glue factory. But Samson was looking over his head. 

And then there was that sound again…. 

Ennis frowned, and caution stopped him from turning around, kept him pretending he hadn’t heard anything. What the fuck?

Again, some sliding noise….

Not a horse. He knew those sounds with his bones. Not a ‘coon after the feed. This was the scuffle of a foot against the dirt floor. 

A two-legged animal’s foot. 

Ennis stepped forward again, his mind moving fast, his movements slow as he tried to figure the best way…. The hair on the back of his neck rose. Somebody was behind him, coming closer, and there wasn’t any good reason for it. 

“There now,” he said low to the horse that had its eyes fixed on something past him. “You looking for the saddle already?”

The rifle was over in the empty stall he was using for storage. He could either go for it or turn around with his fists ready. Maybe grab the thermos and swing it. He looked into Samson’s eyes, trying to read from them what was going on behind him. Breaking into an empty house and stealing food was one thing, but threatening a man in his own stable was another. He decided he’d better—

Something sharp poked into his back, strong enough to push air out of him and shove him up against the stall door. He went flat against the wood, banging his nose on the post, as the bay pulled back fast, not liking it one bit.

He waited, his heart thumping, expecting to feel the sharp bite of a bullet tearing through him any second, for the gun was pinning him where he was. 

A hard voice said, “Don’t move.”

Ennis frowned, thinking he’d heard wrong. “What?”

“You heard me, stay right there.” 

What the fuck? Fear turn into anger, but then relief washed through him and made his fingers uncurl, though why….

“Don’t be getting any ideas, I’ve got you covered. Put your hands up.”

He hadn’t played games like this since he was a kid. “Like hell I will,” he growled. He tried to turn around but that metal prodding against him told him otherwise.

“You want a hole in your back?” 

Ennis snorted. “You ain’t gonna shoot me.” 

“I will if that’s what it takes.”

“What d’you want?” 

“Just a little of your time, cowboy.” 

“All you had to do—”

“Desperate men take desperate measures. Didn’t you hear me say to put your hands up?”

Ennis straightened away from the stall door and put his hands up high, then just to make a point he put them over his hat. “You been reading again.” 

“Nope. I’ve been watching Kojak re-runs because my man works so hard he’s never around. Now turn around slow. No funny moves.” 

Ennis considered launching himself at Jack’s feet and taking him down for a wrestle in the hay, but he was pretty interested in what was going on, so he played along. He turned as ordered, hands on his hat, to see the man he thought was halfway to Kansas City by now wearing his best black jacket and an open-necked country club white Izod shirt, that Ennis had ragged him over the week before. Jack seemed fierce, his face drawn tight, though looking hard it seemed there was a twinkle buried deep that glinted for just a second, then was tamped down with more of a frown than before. 

Ennis fought hard to keep a straight face when he saw the gun: an old manure shovel they’d picked up at a garage sale. He should have been able to tell the difference between that and a real gun. Then again, it wasn’t like he’d ever had a Winchester 30-30 shoved in his ribs before. Jack was holding the thing like it was a real threat. 

“You lost your mind?” 

Jack jerked his head in the direction of the door. “March, Mister.”

“Where we going?” 

“You’ll see.” 

“You’re the boss.”

This time it was Jack who snorted. “Don’t I wish. Come on, get a move on.” 

He could have tripped the man as he went past, but he didn’t make that move, just went forward into the open air, the sunlight coming over his shoulder. 

“What happened to that flight you were—”

“Did I say you could talk yet? Damn, don’t you know how to keep your mouth shut?”

A jab from the shovel reminded Ennis of how ridiculous that statement was, and also how dumb this must look. He was grateful that they had no neighbors to take in the sight. So he kept his hands up to keep on with the game. 

There was a not-so-gentle tap on his left side with the shovel. “Over there, to the forest.” 

They’d noted early on the faint trail that went to the middle of the stand of trees. That first day, they’d followed it to explore the property, and it’d brought smiles for them to see the remains of a kids’ tree house that went up the highest Ponderosa pine. Sometime years back, some boy had nailed strips of wood straight up the tree trunk, like ladder steps, and then built a platform a good forty feet up, above the tops of the oaks. He must have had a good view of this offshoot of the long Moreno Valley. 

That’s where Jack prodded him to go, and Ennis went. Walking in under the trees was like going into another world. It was the way he remembered it’d been with him and Jack in their trips up the Wyoming mountains, feeling safe because they were separate from what life was for real. The trees had their own sound. In this morning calm, he could hear the branches rustling and the call of a sparrow from on high. Their footsteps was muffled too, lost in something that took the sounds down into itself, and the air was still, waiting for all sorts of things that had yet to happen even as it reminded him of all that had happened before. 

Though Ennis was still wondering why they were doing this instead of him working like he should. Was it possible Jack’d been canned from this job, too, like he’d been in Amarillo? Had things gone bad at the Tulip feedlot?

When they’d stepped over and around and under the undergrowth, low-hanging branches, and scrub oaks in their way, that biggest pine came into view. There was a blanket spread under it, and an old log across the back of that, just like they’d looked for on their trips when setting up camp in the back of beyond. Ennis stopped and swallowed. It wasn’t just him thinking of the similarities here. Neither one of them was likely to ever forget those times. 

“Hey….”

“Just get on over there, onto your back.”

Shrugging, Ennis settled in, hat off, hands now folded on his stomach, ankles crossed, propped up against the dead tree limb Jack must have taken some time to find and drag over there. He looked up to where Jack was framed against the green leaves behind him, with just glints of yellow sun showing here and there and one streak coming across an arm. “If you’re aiming for my money, you gotta know you make more’n I do.”

“I don’t want your money.”

“If you’re after my ass, you had that last night.”

“I don’t want your ass.”

“Then what’re you after, you crazy man?” 

Jack threw the shovel over to the leaves built up in a pile to the side, dry brown oak and pine needles mixed, where he must have shoved them when smoothing off the space under the pine. He shrugged out of his fine tailored jacket, draped it over the log, and then set his best hat on top of that. Finally, with a sigh, he sat down next to Ennis, his arms propped on his drawn-up knees. 

“I bet you haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“Nope, but neither have the horses. I’d better—”

“Oh no you don’t.” Jack put a hand on his shoulder to keep him down, though Ennis hadn’t made a move. “I been here more than an hour, and the horses have been fed and watered. I even mucked out the stalls waiting for you to get your sorry self out of bed.” 

“That don’t get them their work for today. You know I spend more time with them on the weekend, so I—”

“You’re spending this time with me!” 

That came out rough, and Ennis heard some hurt there. He reached out and pressed the flat of his hand on that fancy shirt, on Jack’s back, feeling the warmth of the skin under it. 

Jack heaved a sigh, moving his hand up and then down. “So. You think the Yankees will pull ahead of Detroit in time to make the playoffs?” 

“What do you know about the American League, you National League fella?” 

“I’d have to be deaf and blind not to know about the Tigers.” 

Ennis took his hand away to scratch at his nose. “The way Detroit’s playing, don’t seem like anybody can catch them. What about the Mets and that teenage pitcher they got? I think they’re all over your Cardinals.”

“There’s time yet, you see.” Jack leaned over to where there was a brown paper sack sitting on the side of the blanket. “Here, I got us some donuts.” He pulled out a box and opened it to show half a dozen glazed, the sugar melted some now on the papers around them. A couple ants were crawling around, so first he flicked them off, and then he handed one over. There were both thermos too. Ennis noted he must have grabbed his own from the stable. A minute while they each poured a cup into the thermos tops, and there was breakfast.

“You turn kidnapper just to feed me?” 

“Nope.” 

Sometimes, it was true, Jack didn’t say things right out, though in general he was straightforward. Ennis popped the second half of his donut into his mouth and reached for another.

“You get these from Maudie’s?”

“On my way back from Andy’s, yeah.” 

“Some trouble at work that I should know about?” He adjusted the way he was leaning back, wriggling his shoulders until he found a better spot against the wood. 

“Besides the fact that I can’t figure the mileage put on that Jeep?” 

“That still bothering you?”

“I am manager of vehicular operations for Tulip Feedlot, and I can’t get the numbers straight.”

“Somebody’s joy riding.” 

“Two hundred miles the last two weeks? Something’s going on.”

“Without a doubt.”

“Whatever it is, they got to know I’d take note of it. So they’re not hiding it.” 

“That don’t explain why you’re here and not at the Denver airport waiting for your flight to KC.” 

Jack didn’t answer right away while he poured himself some more coffee. “Want some of this?”

Ennis held out his cup. 

“Andy called the Angel Fire airport to double-check about our ride up to Denver. You know how he is.”

“You’ve told me, yeah. Sounds like a nervous Nellie to me.”

“Nervous Nellie and my boss.”

“How old’s that guy?” 

“Twenty-six. With a wife and daughter.” 

Ennis shook his head and then took a sip. The coffee had kept hot and tasted good. “Doesn’t seem right, him lording it over you.”

“He doesn’t do that, and he’s the one with the college degree, not me. Besides, he’s just the assistant GM. I’ve told you how Corliss treats him like shit.” 

“Corliss ain’t worth shit, if you ask me. So about this call to the airport.”

Jack lifted his head, maybe looking for a squirrel on the high branches. “They screwed up on fuel delivery, so there wasn’t any gas to get the Cessna to Denver. It’ll be eleven-thirty before we take off. Andy changed the reservations with American, so we’ll still get in to Kansas City in plenty of time for tomorrow.” 

“So how come you didn’t just stay at Andy’s house instead of coming all the way back here?” 

Jack had blue eyes that could either freeze a hole right through a person, they’d get so cold, or they could heat a person up so the moment became a part of them. 

Or they could make a person feel so warm, cause those eyes talked of things Ennis had few words for, even though he’d been doing his best to talk the last three and a half months cause that was what Jack needed…. 

Jack came back next to him then, leaning against the log, but Ennis put his arm out, asking without words. So instead Jack re-settled in the crook of his elbow, his head on Ennis’s plaid summer-time shirt, and that felt right and familiar. It’d been a fair number of days, weeks even, Ennis realized, since they’d done the same. 

He nuzzled his nose in Jack’s clean brown hair. “You are smelling good today. You put on some of that aftershave?” 

“Just some. Don’t want to make the ladies faint, but don’t want to come across as a hayseed either.”

They hadn’t talked much about this trip, the first one that Jack was taking that pulled him way out of his comfort zone. It turned out that manager of vehicular operations wasn’t really what Jack had been hired for. It was just a title, since how much time could be spent managing a dozen trucks and such? Or it was some sort of flexible term for the cattle feedlot, where thousands of cattle were being fattened up before being sent to market, with room for plenty more cattle. Tulip Feedlot was a new operation and hungry for business. Feedlot manager Corliss Hamilton might be some hard-nosed asshole with his hand on the Bible, but it hadn’t taken two days before he announced that he was smart enough to take advantage of Jack’s talents for talking and sales. Since then, Jack’d been sent out regularly to convince ranchers that feedlots could fatten their cattle and their bottom line. 

This week Jack and Andy O’Donnell, the assistant manager, were scheduled to make a big presentation in Kansas City at some convention, shouting the benefits of northern New Mexico as a place for the last days of any rancher’s cattle. From what Jack said, it seemed that Andy, while a good guy, was leaning on him for the planning and counting on his sweet-talking abilities for success, too. 

Ennis tightened his hold on that man, a hug that brought them together closer for a second, and then he released. “Nobody’d ever take you for a hayseed, not looking so purty and smelling so nice.” 

“Don’t you say the nicest things.” 

“I’m wondering if maybe I need to be worried about those ladies while you’re gone.” 

“Just the ones with dicks.” 

“I don’t know that you want to tangle with ladies who have dicks, sounds too peculiar.”

“You’re right, though you’d be surprised what the wide world holds. I guess I better lock myself in my hotel room while Andy drowns himself in beer at the bar.” 

That would be the day. Ennis had never met the fella, but Jack’d described Andy as a straight and narrow kind of guy, with no patience for booze, though not a hard head like Corliss. More mild. “Maybe you can have one beer.” 

Jack twisted around and looked up at him. “If I’m good, two? Mother may I?” 

“You was pretty good last night, so okay, two.” 

A moment later Jack moved to flip over on his stomach, and Ennis opened up his arm to let him do that. With one elbow planted, Jack reached toward him, his fingers going through Ennis’s hair and then pulling back with a crackly leaf in hand that must have fallen on him. First kiss of the morning after that, leaning forward, just a touch of Jack’s warm lips against his, and Ennis still wasn’t to the point of taking that for granted. After all their good-byes, the hard partings, and the long times apart, he wondered if he ever would. 

“Ennis? You feeling insecure?” 

Waking up and just about instantly feeling him being gone, with the five days absence stretching far in front of him. Jack’s history with the damned ranch manager, and Mexican whores, and double-damned coach Shelborne. Him and Ennis together, really together not all that long. Knowing how he’d hurt Jack over the years cause he’d finally felt it in his own gut. Holding on to his stubborn weakness that he’d pretended was strength. Knowing how close he’d come to letting Jack slip away from him, because Jack had been set on healing and forgetting, and he nearly had….

“Naw,” Ennis said, and he tugged on Jack’s earlobe. “If we gotta remind each other to be good boys when we’re separate, then we ain’t got nothing worth keeping.” 

“It could be you’re worth keeping,” Jack said with a crooked grin, and then he came closer. 

Didn’t think he’d be having the pleasure of Jack’s mouth against his until next Thursday night, so this was a bonus any day of the week. After a minute of serious kissing, Jack hummed in his mouth and pulled away so slow that their lips sort of kept to each other for a moment. Jack smiled that smile of his, swift and bright as the dawn breaking, and then he sat up the way he’d been before. 

“Look up there,” he said. 

Jack pointed with his chin, as his hands went around the knees of his good Docker pants. Ennis looked up. 

“What?”

Jack turned to look down on him. “You ain’t in the right spot. Sit up here.” 

Ennis obliged and then could see there was a big patch of blue sky showing through the branches, plus a bank of clouds with dots of birds flying far off. 

“You figure those are more vultures?” 

Ennis squinted. He could see far distances just fine without his glasses, better than most. “Could be. Yeah, I think so. Damned ugly turkey vultures.” 

“The way they roost in that tree out back past the paddock, it’s enough to scare small children. Right out of a bad fairy tale.”

“If they made good eating, I’d take a rifle to them.”

Jack grunted. “And a hundred more would show up. There’s no use doing that.”

After a minute following the flights of the birds and not saying anything more, Jack swiveled around on his butt and laid out flat, his feet by where the log was, his eyes positioned to keep staring up. Ennis watched him watching… and was reminded of a time, a long time ago, maybe back in the first year after Jack had found and rescued him in Riverton, when they’d laid out in some high meadow, his head on Jack’s stomach on a lazy afternoon. They’d watched the clouds roll by, all different shapes and sizes. Jack had tried to make him say what they reminded him of, like he was still a kid, but Ennis even back then had not been inclined to be so fanciful. So Jack’d done it alone, and he’d spent a hour listening and being amused. 

“What you seeing?” 

Jack’s hand came out and touched his thigh, but without much intent, absent-minded, his thoughts somewhere else. Maybe high up with the birds, flapping their wings. 

“Nothing much.” 

The minutes passed. Ennis thought of his horses, Delilah and Samson needing to be schooled, and Jigger, his steady training horse. He should be getting to his work instead of sitting there filling up his eyes with the sight of Jack’s dark eyebrows, and the smallest wave in his hair against the back of his neck, and the way he was blinking. He shouldn’t be filling up his ears with the sounds of the leaves rustling against each other, and a cricket chirping, and one of the sparrows twittering, filling up some part of himself that he’d never named. Here he was, sitting like it was the wilderness only it wasn’t, cause though Jack would be leaving soon, he’d be coming back in just five days. And Jack had found some unexpected time on a sunny Sunday morning. He’d come back to Ennis with donuts and coffee. 

And a shovel for manure, too, the shithead. Just like Jack. 

“What’re you laughing at?” 

Ennis shook his head. “I didn’t hear any laughing.” 

He reached for the donut box to take the last one. He took a big bite, and then he tore off a piece and held it over the sweetest lips he’d ever kissed. “Want some?”

“Sure.”

“Beg for it.” 

Jack chuckled, that little-boy chuckle he hadn’t ever grown out of, and then he stuck out his tongue and panted like a dog. 

“You are one ugly mutt,” Ennis declared, but then he dropped the food down and watched Jack swallow. “Want more?” He popped the next-to-last piece in his own mouth to chew. 

“I think so,” Jack said low. In a second, he was sitting up and gathering Ennis in his arms, their mouths together. When Ennis opened up, like he always did cause he’d never seen a lot of sense in closed-mouth kisses, damned if that man didn’t steal most of the donut from right out of his mouth. 

It was possible to laugh and kiss and eat all at the same time, at least with Jack Twist it was. After some time Jack tried to drive him down to the blanket, but Ennis remembered that scare in the stables and how foolish he must have looked with a shovel leveled at him, so for sure Jack wasn’t gonna have his way this time. They tussled for a bit, playing around and finishing swallowing, too, and when they were done it was Ennis who climbed aboard and put his weight on Jack. Right away he felt the firmness below the belt that reminded him of how he’d woke up. 

He smirked down at that traveling man. “So, you want my ass?”

Jack snaked a hand down between them, angling for something Ennis wasn’t too proud to let him have, so he lifted up some to make sure Jack’s aim was true. 

“I want your dick, not your ass, you idiot.”

Jack’s fingers had grabbed hold of his stiffness, outlining it through his jeans, and it surely felt good. “Oh, yeah? I thought I was sweetheart, but now I’m idiot. That’s a fighting word, Twist.” 

“You told me you don’t like sweetheart, so I’ll keep trying words out until we find one you do like.” 

“I should just call you a fuck-up and be done with it.” 

Jack stilled and looked at him without laughter. “I am positive that Ennis Del Mar wouldn’t ever be living with a fuck-up, so I’m not worried.” 

He didn’t know what to say to that, so like usual he kept silent and let his body do his talking. His dick was anticipating, and that tight feeling in his balls was starting already. But he figured he’d do some giving first. He wriggled out of Jack’s grip and slid down his front, then set to unbuckling and unzipping, to be rewarded with Jack’s dick mostly hard already making its appearance through the seam of his shorts. 

“What’s this, huh? Didn’t think I’d be seeing you this soon,” he said low, rubbing his chin against the softness of the pisshole and the flared out part beneath, knowing he liked that himself when Jack got to fooling around. Ennis liked the softness against his face and the hardness under it that told of Jack wanting him. This want they had for each other hadn’t tapered off any. He looked along the length of Jack’s body, past the white shirt and his stretched neck to where he already had his arm over his forehead. “You’re gonna have to change clothes before you leave.” 

“After rooting around the stalls this morning, yeah, I think so,” Jack said, addressing the air above him. “You going to get to work there, or are you just out for a stroll?” 

The fingers of Jack’s other hand came down to tangle in Ennis’s hair, petting him gently, with sweetness, and then sweeping through from front to back and finally settling right above his ear. It felt just right, and Ennis didn’t object to being directed back to business that way. Set his ear to tingling, truth be told, though he’d never told Jack that. Ennis bent down with an open mouth. 

This was different cause they’d not made love out in the open like this since… in more’n a year. He was surprised to realize that as he lapped his tongue up and down the length of his man’s naked, cut dick, holding it at the base to guard it from being scraped by the open zipper. Another thing different was the laziness that came over him. Maybe because he hadn’t woke up all the way yet, or because of the buzzing of the insects coming over him, or maybe it was that him and Jack were back where they’d started — but everything was so different now that he needed time to appreciate. 

Seemed Jack felt it too, cause he lay there for a good long while, letting Ennis take his time on the treasure against his tongue, his breathing quiet but getting faster, the fingers in Ennis’s hair moving like he was seeking the perfect hold that was impossible to find. But then with a low _hold on there, don’t want to be this selfish_ he rearranged how they were on the blanket and did some unfastening of his own. Jack’s touch on the bare skin of his stomach as he worked the belt buckle made Ennis’s dick throb, made him catch his breath, and then there was a moment when the world was all waiting…. Then Jack had him exposed to the summer air for a stretched anticipating time that was still only seconds, and he longed for heat and suction that only Jack gave… and finally there it was. There wasn’t much better than the moist warmth of his man’s mouth on him, his own on Jack, as they spread out on their sides, head to toe, giving to each other.

Ennis sighed with the pleasure of it all. In this one moment, everything was good and nothing could harm Jack or him. The world and all its concerns were set apart and far away, and he let himself sink into that earthy feeling of things whole. So fine, his dick being kissed by those sweetest lips and so fine, Jack’s dick finding a home in him. It felt like he was reaching down to the very center of things, a hair’s breadth away from touching the solid core of everything that was. Like he had roots that went deep.

As he sucked like an infant, like a grown man with real feelings, he wasn’t thinking about whether Delilah would sell for six hundred dollars or more, or whether Betty Jo Buckminster had looked on him a little funny the other day, or how the feedlot manager was a hellfire and damnation guy who hated queers and made no secret of the fact so Jack was walking on eggshells, or how he wasn’t too pleased with this whole flying business that Jack’d gotten into, especially the small Cessna that didn’t seem a good idea to him. 

And he wasn’t thinking on five days alone while Jack was in the big city, cause what they had was worth keeping. 

Instead of thinking any of that, he wrapped his arm around Jack’s ass, over those Dockers, wanting to bring him so close, closer, but that wasn’t enough, so he slid his hand under the waistband to bare skin, and that was better. He spread his fingers wide to capture as much of Jack as he could, opened his throat and took in hardness far down, to the thatch of hair, buried his nose in it, breathing the deep essence of his man, and he just wanted to swallow Jack whole if he only could. 

_Baby,_ he thought. _Don’t you know I miss you already? Come back to me safe and the way you’ve always been._

Jack hadn’t ever been able to stand too much of Ennis all the way down on him. Ennis kept at it, feeling Jack’s body go tense all over and knowing his legs were straightening out. He drove down again and again, liking this so well, knowing he was pushing Jack to the edge, digging his nails in to his ass, trying to get more, lower, deeper, all the way down to know all of him, to see him complete. Then he pulled up slow as molasses, intent on making Jack reach the breaking point, soon, and suddenly, with a thrill that shot all the way through him, his dick and his balls and into his chest, he knew he’d done it, cause there it was. Jack released Ennis altogether, gasped, shoved forward into him sharp, cried out, “Oh, hell! Here it comes!” 

Ennis rode his last-second thrusting, knew the rhythms like he knew his own eyes in the mirror, rode and sucked easily as he swallowed what was offered, hot and salty. He could hardly remember the time when this was something he’d had to work up to and wasn’t sure he liked. Now swallowing Jack’s spunk was natural. He liked it. Liked it the way he’d come to even like some parts of himself. 

He waited while Jack panted air back into his lungs, being careful not to apply tongue to the dick that’d done its best and was surely sensitive now. It felt good to be holding Jack’s hardness as it went soft, like he was guarding it, like Jack trusted him to be caring for it in the right way, but he was ready for some action directed to his own needs.

Finally Jack was back on the job. Ennis had a hard time not thrusting in deep right away. Instead he let Jack take control. That man had ideas, and pretty soon Jack was pushing Ennis onto his back and switching around again so he was kneeling between stretched-out legs. 

Jesus Christ, Jack was tip-toeing his balls out of his shorts and cupping them, then drawing them into his mouth like they would break if he wasn’t careful. That drove a shiver up Ennis’s spine and pulled out a groan that probably rang all the way down to the stable. He spread his arms wide against the blanket and through the barely moving branches caught a glimpse of some soaring, long-tailed bird up high, not a vulture this time, but a bird that saw too much from its vantage point, like people who wouldn’t let other people just be. People who wouldn’t like what they were doing, but to Ennis this felt so right. Nobody else but Jack, he’d always felt right, the truest thing in Ennis’s whole world, a world that right now was narrowed down to his dick and Jack’s lips all over it.

“Ennis,” Jack murmured. 

Just that. _Ennis._ Ennis sighed, his dick throbbed a warning, and he was close, so close. Jack knew it and went down on him fast. 

Jack hadn’t said one of those pansy-ass names that he’d been trying out. This was more heart-felt, like there was something behind his name, like it was something special to a man more special than Ennis could say. He wished he could be in Jack’s mind and hear what wasn’t being said, what caused Jack to be feeling like that, cause he didn’t understand. 

Wanted it, needed it, needed Jack, had finally realized that in his dumbass head, but he didn’t understand why Jack seemed to feel the same about him. 

But he did. 

No bird in the sky now, just white-speckled blue through the green roof over them, keeping them safe from prying eyes. Ennis turned his sight down to where Jack was kneeling, bent over him. That dark head bobbing, those fingers clutched around him, the red lips taking him in, that was enough to do it. 

Ennis came with no sound, just one thrust that lifted his hips and sent everything he had pouring out into safe-keeping. 

He settled down from trembling and exhaling all his air, down to the blanket, down to the good earth with its pine needle scent, taking with him the touch of Jack’s hand and tongue on him, the touch of Jack on him for these three and a half months and all those twenty-one years they’d known each other. 

He brought one hand up, then the other, and buried his fingers in Jack’s dark hair, for he was resting his cheek on Ennis’s thigh. He seemed to be studying Ennis’s dick like it held answers to all the questions there were. 

If there was a better place to be, or a better person to be with, Ennis didn’t know it. Even though he felt sleep tugging at him, like it almost always did after lovemaking, he fought it off cause he wanted to say something. “You know those clouds?”

“I do,” came the answer after Jack licked his lips.

“Saw one just a minute ago looked like a hedgehog.” 

That brought the sparkling eyes up with one of Jack’s grins that should be registered with the U.S. government. Jack crawled up toward him aiming for his lips, a tough thing to do with his pants falling down around his knees. Jack wasn’t too good a shot in general, but Ennis helped him out by keeping the target steady. The kiss was flavored with his own come, not something he cared for too much as it made him uncomfortable to be tasting himself, but Jack liked it so Ennis obliged. 

After that Jack settled next to him, looking up at the Ponderosa’s branches, what was surely a kid’s dream from long ago. A minute later he asked, “You think those steps would take our weight?”

Ennis was busy tucking himself back in, while Jack was just laying sprawled with his dick sticking out of his shorts, but since that was the look of a man happy to be fucked-out, that was okay. “You a mind to go tree climbing now?” 

“Just wondering.” 

He eyed the short strips of wood that were nailed a foot apart, all the way up to the limbs that still showed the dark of the tree house platform, then lifted up to pull on his pants and zip up. “I doubt it. Don’t go trying it either. You won’t do me no good with a broken neck. Come ‘ere.” 

Jack put himself back together first, but then he came over to Ennis’s outstretched arm. He settled in on his stomach and elbows as he’d done before, looking at Ennis with satisfied eyes, far better than the frown that had greeted him back in the stable. Ennis ran his fingers along his moustache, and Jack gave him a smile full of knowing. 

He thought about asking what this morning had been all about, him holding Ennis up on their own land, in front of his horses, too. Though Ennis knew they wouldn’t do any telling. He smiled back and decided his man had the right to be a little crazy now and then. Or more often than that, even. 

“Glad you came back,” he said, his voice deep since it took some effort to say. He knew that Jack appreciated his efforts in the talking business. 

“Yeah, me, too. I didn’t want to waste time when I could be spending it with you.” 

“Almost got yourself knocked on the head with the thermos back there in the stable.” 

“I’ll be careful next time I resort to kidnapping.”

“Speaking of careful, you stay safe on those planes.”

“I will.”

“Don’t be worrying over the mileage thing. I bet Hamilton has some good explanation.” 

“Or maybe the bunk manager’s been courting some girl up in Raton, driving there on his off days.” 

“I thought you said the bunk manager had seven kids? Perez?” 

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a girl squirreled away somewhere.” 

Jack dipped down so he could drop a kiss on Ennis’s neck, right in front where his shirt opened. Felt real good. Ennis hummed his appreciation, then set to work pulling up that Izod shirt from where it had just been put under the belt. 

“What are you doing?”

He wrapped his arm around Jack’s back, up under the shirt, and started scratching. He would have thought Jack was in heaven, his face turned so blissful. 

“Oh, man. Oh, that feels so good. A little up…. Over to the right. Further…. Right there. Oh, God.” 

“I guess I know you’ll be coming back.” 

Jack was hanging his head and could scarcely spare the breath to return, “Yeah?” 

“Nobody knows where your itchy spots are better than me, and you sure do go on about a good back scratching.” 

“Down a little…. Harder. Yeah. Lureen knew when we were first married. We get short of money, I should hire you out for your scratching abilities.” 

Ennis let out a _humph_ at that. He set to work more seriously, shifting so he could reach all over from neck to waist. Jack relaxed, came down off his elbows so his weight went down along Ennis’s side and chest, and then he turned his head on Ennis’s shoulder. Ennis slowed the big loops he was making over Jack’s spine until after a few minutes he was barely touching skin. It seemed Jack was on the edge of sleep, his breathing soft and even. 

In a little while he would have to stop and wake his drowsy man, because his Timex was showing 9:09. Jack would probably take a shower, change clothes, and he’d be on his way again to pick up Andy, who was leaving his own truck for his wife to drive. Ennis would go back to the stable and apologize to the horses, but there was still plenty of time to take them out in the big field behind the paddock, and maybe even work in a trail ride for Delilah, who needed more attention. He’d spend extra time with them this week, because he had things to prove to himself and to Jack. That nicer house for Jack wouldn’t just happen with no effort. And all through the week he’d work hard at the Cross B Ranch, his thoughts turning at times to Kansas City.

But none of that mattered right now. Right now, his man was dozy in his arms, and Ennis was damned glad he’d signed on for life with Jack Twist in Eagle Nest, New Mexico.

****


	2. Bitten

“Damn it,” Ennis muttered to himself as he stuck his hand under his belt and scratched his lower back. He hadn’t figured that New Mexico, on a summer Sunday morning, wasn’t the same as the chill of the Wyoming mountains as far as insects went, not by a long shot. And he bet Jack hadn’t figured that either, which gave him some satisfaction that maybe Jack was in Kansas City with itching mosquito bites of his own, cause of that crazy man’s blanket spread under a tree.

He let out a puff of air that had some grin to it when he thought on how he was lucky he hadn’t got bit on his dick. Maybe that was where Jack was scratching. Well, he wasn’t gonna find out for four more days. Though the picture that drew in his mind would keep him amused while he was waiting. Jack squirming during one of the speeches he’d have to sit through, or maybe in the middle of the night, reaching down for the wrong reason…. 

Trying to stop himself from scratching, Ennis opened up the pasture gate with one hand, then went through and closed it, making sure it was latched and the wire went on down tight. He turned to see if he could make out the shapes of the three horses he’d just let free for the night.

Monday with horses had come and gone. He’d put in a full day’s work at the Cross B, and then at home Delilah had surprised him when she kicked up a fuss out on the back trail. She’d almost thrown him with her stiff-legged jumping sideways. Now wouldn’t that be fine and dandy, him supposed to be such a expert, getting bucked off by a horse he was trying to teach to act right enough for strangers to buy her. 

He knew he had a way with horses that calmed them and went to the root of their problems, teaching them not to fear. But Delilah had been a tough nut at the beginning, with plenty to fear according to her horse-sized brain. Nobody at the Friday night auction where he’d got her would touch her cause of the two handlers that had been needed to bring her into the ring. Her coat had been matted something bad cause she wouldn’t stand to be brushed. Now she stood and stretched her neck when he came toward her with a brush, wanting his hand. He had her calmed, trusting, and mainly she was paying attention to him when she should. Though she’d always be a horse with spirit. Ennis found he liked that fine. Could be he was used to that.

The horses were settled for the night, so he went on toward the house, walking through the dark shadows of the trees cast by the three-quarter moon, with his hands in his pockets and his head down, not seeing much of anything but hearing the far off sound of grinding gears. Must be a truck out on Route 38, heading through for Raton or Trinidad, winding its way through the Sangre de Cristo mountains. When he got to the house and washed his hands at the kitchen sink, the phone started ringing. 

He let it ring while he ambled into the back room where the TV was, along with his old brown chair hauled all the way from Riverton by way of Amarillo. Alma probably wouldn’t let the thing in her house, since it was undeniably ratty, with a stain on one side where he’d spilled beer two years before, but it suited him and was comfortable. Jack liked to sit in the thing too. He eased down into it and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Well, if it isn’t Ennis Del Mar. I bet you don’t know who this is.”

Ennis sighed. Not one of his favorite people. “When did they let you out of jail?”

“No need to get nasty. I haven’t talked to you since February.” 

“And there ain’t no need to talk to me now.”

“I’m the one who might reasonably have hard feelings, not you. Okay, just hand me over to Jack.” 

Ennis reached up to turn on the lamp. He blinked in the sudden pool of yellow light. “Jack ain’t here.”

“What? Do you mean there’s trouble in Paradise already? I’m not surprised to hear that.”

This man sure did have a way of making him want to grind his teeth or bite something. What Jack had ever seen in the prick, he didn’t know. “No trouble,” Ennis said short, and it went against him to say even that much.

“Positive? Because if Jack is interested in moving back to Texas, I’ve got a great place here in San Antonio with plenty of room for—”

“Shelborne, don’t Trinity University want you for something right now? Don’t you got nothing better to do until the college year starts except annoy decent folks? 

He could hear the coach laughing. “You’re not decent folks, Del Mar, not according to most people. So how has the reception been for you two so far? Any problems from your point of view?”

“Nope.”

“I bet you’ve been laying low, though. Not too much to do out that way unless you go into Taos.” 

“I’m a working man, I don’t have time for fooling around. What’re you calling for?”

“Just to see how Jack’s doing.”

“He’s fine.”

“Sure, according to you. I thought I’d hear it from his own mouth, just to make sure.” 

“What you think, I got him tied up in a storm cellar?”

“You might, only to let him out to have your way with him.”

Ennis didn’t let himself smile, as he preferred being annoyed. “Like I said, he ain’t here.”

“Is he in Childress visiting that wild son of his and his ex-wife, what’s her name?”

“Lureen. And Bobby’s not so wild. But Jack’s not in Childress.”

“How about later on tonight, will he be home?” 

“Nope.”

“Should I call again tomorrow?”

The coach sure was being persistent. “Try Saturday. He’s away on business.” 

“Oh, you mean one of his trips for the feedlot. He’s told me all about those. Did you know—”

Ennis cut him off. “I know the two of you have talked now and then.” 

“And I think that’s big of you, to allow that. One of these days I’m going to take you up on that generous offer you made last winter to let me visit Jack.” 

The coach did sarcastic better than Johnny Carson. Maybe he should quit the basketball business and go audition. “It’s Jack’s business who he’s friends with.”

“That’s a very enlightened way to look at things, but it isn’t every man who would let an ex-lover show up on his partner’s doorstep, and I want you to know—”

“Oh, shut up, Shelborne,” Ennis said, but without any heat. He didn’t have much else to do tonight except listen to this fool, what with Jack gone and nothing on TV but Newhart. “So, you want me to give Jack a message?”

“Sure. Tell him I called.”

“Yup.”

“And….”

The coach and Jack had been well-matched in one way at least, as they both could talk the antlers off a bull elk, so Ennis noticed the hesitation. “Yeah?”

“Tell him… tell him that I’m beginning to see the light.”

Ennis grunted. “He’s gonna ask me what you mean by that, so you might as well tell me.”

There was the passing of some seconds while Ennis waited. The delay made him curious. He propped up his ankle on his left knee and wondered what Shelborne could be going on about. 

“I guess I owe you an apology, Del Mar.” 

“Oh, yeah? Sure, I’ll take it. About what?”

“I never did take you and Jack seriously.”

“I’m aware.”

“I didn’t think gay men like us ever settled down.” 

Settled down? Ennis scratched the side of his face and resisted the urge to go after those damn mosquito bites again. Him and Shelborne came from different worlds, it was true. Seemed to him that a fella like the coach resisted settling as long as he could, acting like a teenage boy for years if he could string it out. What he knew about some gay men, the kind that were always hanging around bars and going after a fuck with a different man each night, fit in that category. 

But after his folks had died, Ennis had been put out on his own too early. The promise of settling had been one thing that drew him to Alma, and the thought of having children of his own had gone some long way to keeping him and Jack apart. He’d ached for that, having his place in the world. But Alma hadn’t been the right place for him to stop, not with Jack hanging heavy on his mind, not to mention his dick being so needful of him, and though he loved his girls…. 

His eyes wandered over to the long, wide sofa that stretched wall to wall at the far end of the room, built right into the room and set under the window air conditioner that was way up high. They hadn’t turned the AC on but once, but it had come with the house, so there it stayed. Him and Jack had sat on that sofa one night late, seeing the end of some movie. Jack had put his hand on Ennis’s thigh halfway through, and after a while Ennis had covered it. Jack had come closer so they were shoulder to shoulder, and they’d watched on through to the end like that, leaning against each other. Not saying much, just sitting there, with no reason to be concerned about the next day or the next week of being alone, cause they were together now. He couldn’t remember what movie it’d been, but he remembered the feeling.

Settled. Even with Jack gone to KC for the week, that’s how he was. 

Ennis cleared his throat. “So?”

“I didn’t see what Jack wanted with you, or…. Truth is, I’ve met this man.” 

If Ennis had been the type to laugh in a person’s face, he would have done so then. “Is that so?”

The coach was talking faster than usual now. “His name is Jeffrey. He gives lessons in piloting out at the airport. And he plays the cello in his spare time. I met him at an alumni booster meeting.” 

It was hard for him to imagine it, the coach bitten by the bug and being serious. “And he’s, uh, he’s….”

“Of course he’s gay. I’m not going to waste my time going after a straight man.” 

“No need to get on your high horse, I was just asking. So this Jeffrey’s caught your eye in a different way, huh.”

“We’ve gone out a few times, had some wild times already. Don’t worry, Mister Straight-laced, I won’t shock you with the details.” 

“That’s good. There’s no reason to be airing your dirty laundry with me. I ain’t interested.”

“What you call dirty laundry would make a good spread in a gay men’s magazine, believe me.” 

“I’ll take your word for it. How long you known him?”

“Six weeks.” 

“I seem to recall you saying something about not ever being with anybody for longer than… what was it? Nine months?”

“Eight.”

“So, you calling Jack for advice?” 

“You two have been together more than twenty years, so I thought—”

“A little more than four months together, Shelborne,” Ennis said flat. “That’s all. About three and a half months here in New Mexico.”

“That’s not the way I look at it, and I don’t think Jack does, either. You two are the proverbial long-time companions.” 

“It doesn’t matter, he’s not here to blab all about our private business to you.” 

“Okay, okay, I’ll call again over the weekend.”

“You do that.”

“In the meantime, you stay away from any bashers out there in the wilds of New Mexico, okay?”

“That’s real sweet of you, Shelborne.” 

“Don’t mention it, Del Mar. We gay men need to stick together.” 

“I’ll let Jack know I talked with you.” He didn’t figure he owed the coach any good-bye, so he put the phone down, not knowing if he should chuckle at the thought of the guy—who wasn’t a donkey-dong, according to Jack, despite his six foot six frame—being so desperate as to ask him for advice on his love life, or if he should feel bad all over again about those twenty years he’d denied both Jack and himself. But that was old ground, the regrets and the guilt, and he wasn’t gonna go there anymore. Him and Jack, they had reason to look forward and not back now.

Instead he got up to find where he’d put his glasses, cause a new issue of _U.S. News & World Report_ had arrived in the mail. He wanted to see what the latest polls said about Mondale being the Democrat running against Reagan, and who the experts thought his vice president pick would be. He’d have something of substance to discuss with Jack when he got back. That stars-in-his-eyes man thought the Democrats had a chance….

*****

 

On Tuesday morning, though Ennis got to the Cross B well before eight a.m., the lower stable doors were wide open as he walked up on the hard-packed dirt. The rising sunlight was streaming in to the passageway between stalls, picking out the dust suspended in the air, along with three people standing there. Usually he was the one who opened things up, but he could see Ryan, who everybody called Rocky, his wife Betty Jo, and their second son Matt. It wasn’t long before he found out why they were there, cause two of the stalls, normally occupied, were empty. 

“Stolen,” Rocky said with a look like jagged rocks in his eyes. Betty Jo stood off to the side by one of the stall doors, her lips tight and her eyes closed, like the sight hurt her so much that she couldn’t bear to see. Though the others were dressed, she was wrapped in a blue fuzzy robe and white sneakers. Rocky stood with his hands on his hips, one angry man, in the middle of the short side aisle where the kids and the part-time hands generally brushed the horses down.

It took Ennis a couple seconds to take it in, but then a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach made him move. “How do you know for sure?” he asked. He went over to check the roomy box stall that’d been occupied by a well-behaved roan, Malibu, the day before. He’d been Ennis’s riding horse at the Cross B. Only the straw was there, not mucked out yet, and no sign of what might have happened that he could see. 

Rocky jerked his head in the direction of the tack room. Nothing about the Cross B operation was fancy, but it was organized the way any sensible man would arrange it, and that had been one reason Ennis had thought from the beginning he could work with these folks. 

“They take bridles and saddles?” he asked when Rocky didn’t say nothing more.

“That’s right. And our working horses, Malibu and Jersey,” the boy put in. He’d followed Ennis and was standing by his elbow. “Not the breeding stock. None of the others outside are gone.”

“Somebody who knew horses for sure, then. They needed them for something definite, maybe traveling,” Ennis concluded. He wanted to curse, but he had a high respect for his boss’s wife. The loss of these horses… that said bad things about crime in the Moreno Valley. He thought he’d got away from such things, moving with Jack away from big city of Amarillo. What the hell was going on? He thought of his own three, turned out loose in the field, then tried to let that go, cause what could he do about it now? He shook his head. “Those were good horses.” 

“Who’d do this?” Betty Jo got out, and it seemed to Ennis that she was gritting her teeth, she was so mad. 

Rocky went over and put his arms around her, hugging her to his front. She resisted a minute and then gave in with a sigh. Rocky Buckminster was almost as tall as the coach and about as thin as Ennis was himself. Betty Jo was shaped overall like a fireplug, not having lost the weight she’d put on through bearing three sons, and she didn’t come up too high against her husband. There was some murmuring words, comforting given from one dark head to the other, though he wasn’t sure which way the strong in that marriage went and who was comforting who. Either way, Ennis felt embarrassed to be hearing. He turned to the boy. 

“You reported this to the police yet?”

Matt nodded, looking a lot like his dad. At fifteen, he was at that in-between stage, needing to shave only every couple days, half-man, half-boy, and often seeming awkward as a result, with arms too long and shoulders not caught up yet. At his age, Ennis had been scrawnier, had just started hiring out with K.E., and had hair a hell of a lot shorter.

“Dad called it in half an hour ago. Mom woke up early when she heard Butch barking, so she got me and Dad up checking on things. The Natural and Tag are still asleep.” 

Not moving apart from each other, Rocky and Betty Jo both looked over at them. She had a frown that wouldn’t quit. Ennis wouldn’t have figured her for a crying woman, and it looked like he was right. 

Rocky said, “Howard’s on his way over here now. There goes half the day, I guess.” He stepped back a few feet from Betty Jo and ran a hand over his thin face. “Ennis, when you go out, I guess you should take…. I don’t know who you should take. I guess you can use Yukon.”

“He’s old for what I need. Not nimble.”

“You’re right, but right now we don’t have a choice.”

Ennis nodded. “You got any ideas of who done this?”

Finally Betty Jo spoke up. “Whoever they were, I hope they know how to care for their animals.”

Ennis touched his summer-time straw hat. “Me, too, ma’am. There’s been some small break-ins down south in the valley the last couple months, mainly toward Angel Fire, but they didn’t take all that much.”

“I’ve heard of the break-ins, too.”

“Kids could be responsible, maybe, or could be drifters passing through. But there ain’t been nothing that I’ve heard of like this.”

“Maybe we’ll get the horses back,” Betty Jo said. “Police catch thieves all the time, don’t they?” 

Ennis wanted to say _not likely,_ but he didn’t. He exchanged a look with Rocky and then went on over to the stable door. The lock was broken right off, maybe done with a rock. “The horses might show up in one of the local auctions, you never know.” He straightened his spine. “Anything I can do right now? Rocky, you’re gonna be busy with the police. How about if I take on your chores?” 

Rocky looked grateful. “That’d be a big help. Matt, you could help Ennis with that, right?”

The kid nodded. “Okay. Except I want to be here when the chief comes, all right?”

The big man reached out and tousled his son’s hair. Matt looked embarrassed and pulled back, saying “Dad!” in that way Ennis was familiar with from his daughters’ younger years.

“Both of you’d better stick around while he’s here, just in case he wants to ask you questions.” 

Ennis wasn’t too happy at the thought of coming to the attention of the police, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He didn’t know for sure, but it seemed likely that there was some sort of law in New Mexico against men like him and Jack.

“You’re gonna have to file insurance.” 

“Don’t I know it. What a mess.”

There didn’t seem to be much more to say. Ennis felt for the Buckminsters. The loss of two trained animals was not just upsetting to the routine of the ranch, but some blow to the bank account. Both had been purebred Quarter horses, close-coupled and powerful through the hindquarters, finer than any animal Ennis had ever owned himself. Not to mention the feelings that bound a person to the horse that carried him.

Matt had followed him again, and now he said so his folks couldn’t hear him, “Jersey had Mom’s brand, you know.” 

Nope, Ennis didn’t know anything of the sort, as he’d not paid too much attention to family stuff. He’d figured he wouldn’t butt into their business, hoping they wouldn’t butt into his.

By noon the police chief had come and gone, with not much encouragement about recovering anything, exchanging no more than a dozen words with the ranch’s new worker from Wyoming. Ennis wasn’t using the term the Buckminsters had given him, foreman. Ennis had finished Rocky’s morning chores with the breeding stock, so he went over to the foaling shed. There the two youngest fillies, just two months old now, were turned out with the mares in the small paddock, with an open lean-to in the corner for some shelter. Ennis made it a habit to spend some time with them each day, getting them used to being handled, to the touch of his hand and his scent. That way, when they were yearlings there’d be no problems in the selling ring, and they’d fetch a good price. The Buckminsters’d had some problems with that in the past, as the family had been so set on taking care of the breeding and birthing end of things that they’d neglected the stock they were actually ready to sell. One of the things Ennis was brought on for. 

Movement over by the house caught his eye, and he looked up to see Betty Jo walking toward him across the patchy grass. She was dressed in jeans and a cotton shirt, just like he was, for she had her own work on the ranch, though most of that was close to the house cause of her youngest. The Cross B was a family operation that kept the two adults and the two oldest boys busy.

She had an apple in one hand, an orange in the other, and she held out both to Ennis. “Want one?”

He picked the apple and went back to leaning on a fence post. He didn’t have any words to say, so he bit into it and chewed. She stood next to him, seeming to be watching the foals or maybe the swell of the mountains against the sky. The mountains didn’t seem so high as in Wyoming, partly cause the valley was already at such altitude. The breeze blew the good air into their faces. 

“I love this time of year on the ranch. The kids home from school, the weather just perfect.” 

He grunted in return, feeling comfortable enough with her to let that do for a reply. 

“I’m making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight.”

He looked at her sideways, and she turned to him. 

“Would you consider doing me a favor?”

“What’s that?” 

“The family’s upset. Rocky’s running all over the house checking locks with a hammer in one hand and a can of WD40 in the other. The Natural— I mean, Davey knows something’s going on but not what, to have his father around the house during the day, and he’s clinging more than usual. Even Matt and Tag are dragging. I was hoping to come up with something to take their minds off it.”

He turned all the way to face her now. “And I’m that something?”

“You’d be a novelty at the dinner table. What do you say?” 

He wanted to find some way to get out of it. He’d not called attention to himself in the few short months he’d been working at the Cross B, and he wanted it to stay that way. Jack had thought they could live open in this area, so close to the artist community that was Taos, but one week at Tulip Feeders and Corliss Hamilton’s attitudes had killed that notion. Ennis had no reason to think otherwise for his own situation. The Buckminsters were nice folks, but…. 

“I’d say I’d be engaging in some sort of plot with my boss’s wife.” Jack would have said conspiracy, one of his fancy words that he’d been trying out as long as Ennis had known him.

“I’m the one who signs your paychecks, Ennis.” 

He could have taken that as a threat but knew she didn’t mean it that way. Betty Jo could be awkward sometimes in how she put things.

He touched his hat. “Then I’d be engaging in a conspiracy with one boss against the other boss.” 

“Not against. For. There’s a logic to this. What do you say? Unless you’ve got something else going on tonight….”

He saw the curiosity in her eyes and turned away from it back to the fillies. He’d not volunteered any information about his living arrangements. 

“I have my own horses to work. They’re almost ready for selling, and I’d hate to break the routine.” 

“I remember, you bought them after you first came here. You live over on County Road Nineteen, right? It’s not far at all.” 

“Have a good set-up there.”

“So what would you be eating if you went home at the regular time today?”

She had him there. “I’d open a can of Wolf Brand chili, probably.” 

“How can you eat that stuff?”

“I’m used to it.” Or he had been, anyway. Him and Jack, they’d gotten into real cooking once they’d moved in together, but he had no intention of heating up the kitchen if he didn’t have anybody to eat with. 

“I don’t know how to compete against a can of chili,” Betty Jo said with a smile. None of her smiles were small. She didn’t seem to know how to do it. All her teeth showed every time. “But how about a poker game afterward? I’m going to be busy tonight, but I know the boys and Rocky would love to play with you.” 

He ducked his head. She was pushing hard and wasn’t giving him much choice. Saying no now would raise all sorts of questions that he didn’t want to raise. But there was only so much daylight he could use during early mornings and evenings to be with Samson and Delilah….

“Ah, come on, Ennis, help me out. I promise you won’t be poisoned by my cooking.”

“I didn’t think I would.” He’d never liked strong-minded women and had always suspected he would have strangled Jack’s Lureen before a year of marriage was over. She might have been fine for Jack, but not for him. Betty Jo wasn’t exactly that same way… he saw the sweetness under her ways.

He was done for, he figured. It hadn’t been in his plans to get involved in any way with the Buckminster family, since he’d wanted him and Jack to keep themselves to themselves. But that was a plan made by the Ennis who’d lived in Wyoming, alone in a shack, who held Jack at a distance, and not the Ennis who lived in New Mexico and held Jack close most nights and mornings. 

That’d been a plan he knew wasn’t likely to work. 

“All right.” 

She gave him another of her Jack-type smiles. “Thanks, you’re a sweetheart. Dinner’s at six, but you’re welcome to come in and relax before then.”

After the weekend he’d spent with them in March, he’d not stepped foot in the Buckminster home past the bathroom off the back porch. But he’d be going farther, looked like. “I’ll do that.”

He watched her walk away, reflecting on how under her matter-of-fact words was a whole lake, a whole ocean, of love for her man. And her kids. Even at the best of times, that had lasted maybe a few months for him and Alma. He hadn’t felt that kind of love and caring with a woman. 

_“Ennis, I got to talk to you.”_

_It hadn’t been but an hour since he’d come home to the apartment over the laundromat. It was after normal supper time. Alma hadn’t offered him any food, so he just took a beer from the fridge and sat in the living room with no conversation. He tried to never show signs of what he felt inside after just parting from Jack after their week in the wilderness, which wasn’t too hard, as he didn’t understand the mix inside himself. His balls finally drained, deep down body-satisfaction that he never got any other way. Not with Alma no matter what way he took her, not with his own hand for sure, not in his own mind or imaginings. Only with Jack did his dick find a home. But ranged against that was knowing that it would be months before he saw that man again, before his lips turned up at something amusing Jack said, or before they could throw stones into some stream or float a leaf down it to see how far it would go. Before the ache in his chest went away and he could draw in air again. The mountains did that for him, let him breathe, and a bonus was that Jack was there, too…._

_Back down in the lowlands again, with Alma, without Jack, the tightness had come back even before he walked through the door and heard his girls’ voices. His confusion was back, too, that hung on him every day, pulling him one way, pulling him another, just like these first days after the wilderness confused him. His body was eased but his heart was all stirred up and wanting, worse than before._

_But they were just queer vacations for Jack, right? Ennis didn’t need those, did he, the way that Jack seemed to. Did he?_

_The girls had gone to bed already, saying good-night and kissing him sweetly on the cheek, like the good girls they were, telling him they were glad to see him and hoped he’d had a good time fishing. Alma sat down on the sofa and seemed to expect him to join her, but Ennis stayed, stubborn, slouched on the chair that she usually took. There wasn’t but one dryer going downstairs, the one with the clank to it, and he resisted the urge to pay attention to that more than to Alma. Things hadn’t been too good with them, not for a while, but he didn’t know what to do to fix any of it. Seemed paralyzed._

_Alma sat there, face like mud at the bottom of a well, and told him about the end of things. Like the end-days that the preacher spoke on in church, the end of the world, and with her one word—divorce—the whole bottom of his world dropped away, leaving him floating in nothing.  
The black all around him, no relief, no stars, nothing to hold onto. He stared at Alma, his hands gone tight around the beer bottle, watched her lips move, heard the idea form in the air between them, and it hit him right in the gut. _

_Not living with his girls no more. Not having a home like a normal man. All he’d aimed for taken away, no foundation under his feet, no comfort at the end of the day. Alma went on, saying they had nothing in common no more, and she would let him see the girls regular according to the judge, but she just couldn’t see no sense in staying married, considering…._

_She stopped there and looked at him as if she was judging. For a span of time that seemed to go on for hours, Ennis was on the edge of a cliff, ready to jump like a bird throwing itself into the wind, wings spread, sharp beak open, claws out wide… To bear her down if she was to say…. If she was to know…. If he was to hear…._

_A second later there wasn’t any judging in her eyes. Instead there were anger and sad jostling one another and her mouth pursed up like it couldn’t get no smaller. She waited, and waited, expecting him to produce some reply, but he had nothing to say. Abrupt, she got up to walk into the bedroom and slammed the door._

_He stayed there in the living room, the beer up to his lips, on automatic. He felt like a bad TV show, asking the questions every man must ask in like times. Did she ever really love me? Did I ever love her? And what went wrong?_

_But there wasn’t ever any TV show that had the answers that were true for him. What went wrong? He’d gone wrong. His dick that needed Jack. Him that needed Jack._

_After the third beer he started trembling, and the only thing that stopped it was knowing that one part of his life wasn’t took away, that Jack wouldn’t stop coming for their meetings, that two or three times a year he could still get together with that man. Though they’d need to be more careful, cause Alma wouldn’t be there any more, convincing folks he was normal._

Nine years later, almost, Ennis stood in the noon-time sun on the Cross B ranch and knew another mix of feelings. A sadness deep down that he’d not ever had what Betty Jo gave to Rocky. A sadness that he’d never been able to dredge up for Alma anything close to the feelings that Rocky had for his wife. And… on the edge of that, growing, some honest good feeling knowing that what him and Jack had right now…. 

He turned his sight to the folds of the mountains, where a bad man, or maybe a desperate one, could take a horse he’d stolen cause he was running away. Or where a confused man could go to find himself, with the only one he’d ever felt at ease with, the only one he’d ever wanted to spend time with, the man who showed him how to breathe free.

What him and Jack had, it wasn’t what men and women had, he was sure of it. He didn’t want that, didn’t want what he’d pretended to be trying for with Alma, some pie-in-the-sky thing called love that different people, seemed to him, understood in different ways. Him and Alma, they’d never had the same understanding. She’d never known him complete, and that was his fault as much as hers, cause he’d had to hide himself. If she’d known him, there would never have been a marriage, so it all came down to the same anyway. 

But Jack and him, they did understand the same. And Jack, he did know Ennis Del Mar complete, even that business with his daddy and the dreams. They had no marriage, cause that wasn’t for men like them, but in Ennis’s eyes what they had now was better. Honest through.

For just a few beatings of his heart, he felt how far away Jack was, and Ennis wished him near. It would be good if he could see Jack this night. 

But that was gonna happen eventually if he was patient. The man who cared about what Ennis ate would be coming home on Friday. 

*****

 

The Buckminster house was a nice two story with two spruce trees grown tall on each side and one out front that bent backward, as if it was protecting the house from all comers. Ennis walked in the side door and wiped his feet, feeling awkward, but Matt was there right away saying his mom wanted to know if he’d drink a beer. The youngest boy, who must be seven or eight, was sprawled on the floor, on his belly watching Sesame Street. Ennis said, sure, he’d take a beer, and then he went past the youngster to the back bathroom to do his business and wash up before dinner. He came on back, took the Coors in a can that Matt handed him, and settled down to check out Big Bird. He knew better than to expect Davey to say anything. After a minute or two he remembered his hat, swiped it off, and balanced it on the sofa arm. 

Matt was in the kitchen with Betty Jo, him setting the table and her rolling up meatballs and putting them in a hot skillet, and he could see and hear them clear from where he was. Betty Jo threw a _Hi, Ennis_ over her shoulder. That started her with a few comments here and there that set him more at ease. 

He didn’t know much about putting together a house, but this one seemed like a home. Messed up some, with a few of Davey’s toys spread around, and a pile of magazines overflowing on a side table, a few of them spilled down to the floor. He stretched his neck to check them out and concluded this might be a _Newsweek_ household. Over on the counter that separated this room from the kitchen, there was a heap of papers. Bills, probably, and advertisements that had come in the mail. Him and Jack had started getting them, too, from pizza joints and optometrists and the local furniture dealer, sent even to an address where two queers lived, though nobody knew that.

“Smells good,” he told the cook, and it did. He was disappointed the meal wouldn’t be something different, as him and Jack had got spaghetti cooking down pretty well and made it just about every week.

His girls hadn’t ever watched PBS when they were young, though sometimes he liked to see it himself for a change. This station wasn’t coming in too clear. The feed was from Colorado, but he could see the little one was fascinated with it, his eyes never leaving the screen. 

“Would you mind?”

He looked up to see Betty Jo in front of him holding out a glass jar of spaghetti sauce. Ragu. Him and Jack used Prego, since it’d been on sale at the store when they’d gone to stock up. 

“They make these tops so tight on these jars, I don’t see how a single woman living alone could manage to feed herself. It takes a man’s strength to get it open. I’ve never had any strength in my hands.” 

Ennis took it from her and was relieved to see he could get it open without much effort. Would have been embarrassing to struggle with the thing. 

“There you go,” he said, and she went back to the kitchen.

He sipped beer until the oldest boy came charging down the steps from whatever he’d been doing upstairs. Tag, short for Terence, he’d been told. He would be starting his last year of high school in late August, just like Jack’s boy Bobby. Tag favored his mom, which meant he was shorter than his younger brother, and Ennis had noticed some resentment from him in that area. He doubted Tag would grow too much taller. Still, Tag was a good-looking kid with big brown eyes that probably drove the girls to distraction. 

“Hi, Ennis,” he said. Tag went into the kitchen, got himself a beer, and flopped down on the sofa next to him. Betty Jo threw him a look as he walked by her, but she didn’t say anything, so Ennis figured the boy had regular access to the Coors. At seventeen, that didn’t seem unreasonable to him, though Alma wouldn’t hear of such a thing for their girls until they were of drinking age. 

“You like garlic bread, Ennis?” Betty Jo called in. 

“That’s fine.” That’d be something different, anyway. 

Five minutes later there was some thumping, and then Rocky came up the stairway from the basement, wiping his hand on a rag. He went over and dropped a kiss on Betty Jo’s cheek. “I’ve checked everything, and we’re all locked up,” he said to her. Ennis could hear him even over the sound of the spaghetti in boiling water. “Don’t you worry about anything, BJ.”

BJ. Hadn’t he had a chuckle when he’d first heard that nickname Rocky called her, out in the open and all, in front of the kids. Late one night, or maybe it’d been early one morning, he’d shared it with Jack. That fella had spent the next week at every opportunity asking for a _BJ, oh, excuse me, a blow job_ with that giggle of his—that no grown man should still have, even if it was one of the things that he’d been thinking on with Jack gone so much and all. 

He supposed this was okay, him taking the time away from his own chores to be eating with the Buckminsters. It was doubtful that Jack would say anything to oppose it. Instead Ennis could hear his voice explaining they should be neighborly and help out when asked, which was the way Ennis thought on it, too. Outside the window, the sun was still shining strong.  
There was almost three hours left of daylight, but his horses wouldn’t mind that they were getting the night off. It was only Ennis himself who felt uneasy. His determination to make something of himself, something more than the hardscrabble ranch hand he’d been, with no future and a past he wasn’t proud of, could only come through hard work. 

“Hey, Mom,” Tag called, the first words he’d spoken since he sat down, “When’s dinner? I’m starved.” 

“If you ate food at regular times like ordinary people, you wouldn’t get so hungry at dinner. Just five more minutes, we’re almost ready.” 

Matt helped her put things on the table, then they were all sitting down to eat. Ennis wondered if they might be one of those families that said a blessing before meals. He was prepared to bow his head and act respectful, but Rocky just picked up the spaghetti bowl and helped himself. He passed it to Ennis, who was sitting across from him at the big round table in the Buckminster kitchen. 

“BJ is the best cook in the county,” Rocky said sincerely as he twirled some spaghetti on his fork. “You should taste her pot roast.” 

“I’ll make that next time you come for dinner,” she offered. 

Ennis just nodded. He had a feeling that maybe Rocky’s affections were turning his judgment, as the meatball he’d just swallowed had been burned black on one side, and him and Jack could get the water going for spaghetti just as well as any woman. It’d been some time since he’d sat down to a family table. This made him think on other times with Junior and Jenny, before the divorce. Or the last true family meal he’d been at on Thanksgiving years ago, but he wasn’t gonna let himself go no place sad. 

“So, how are you liking New Mexico so far, Ennis?” Betty Jo asked. 

He’d figured the price for the food was gonna be talking, so he was prepared. “Just fine. It’s warmer here than in Wyoming, though.” 

“I thought you were living in Texas before you moved here?”

“I was, but not for too long. Just a couple months in the winter.” 

“We’ve been to Texas,” Matt said. “Our Uncle Ted lives in Dallas, so we go see him some years in October for the Texas State Fair. Can you believe that they don’t have no Quarter Horse showing there at all?”

“They don’t have any,” Rocky corrected his son. “You aren’t going to score high on your SATs and get into college talking like that.” 

“Ennis knows what I mean.”

“I don’t know what the big fuss about college is anyway,” Tag put in. “I’m not sure I want to go at all.” 

“You’ll think differently when the time comes,” BJ said. 

Tag seemed to think on that for a second, and then he agreed. “At least it might be more interesting than living around here. Nothing ever happens here.”

“Pass the garlic bread to our guest, please.” 

As the meal wore on, it became apparent that Betty Jo was determined to keep the flow of words away from what had happened that day. Ennis thought that was not too wise, but it wasn’t for him to say. So he listened to how Tag expected to play on the six man football team that fall, with training camp to commence in early August. 

“I haven’t seen six man ball,” he said as his share of the conversation, trying to be careful of his words cause of the kids and the college hopes. That was all that was needed, as the Buckminsters either were talkative around dinner or they were determined to fill him in on their entire lives. They told him six man was because of the schools around there being so small but still wanting to field a team, and how the rules were different from the norm. Tag had played the two years before and was sure to start this year too. 

He was too wise to ask if Matt enjoyed the sport, but was told eventually that baseball was his game. That caught his attention. 

“You been following the Tigers?” he asked. 

“I sure have. What do you think of Hernandez?”

“He’ll crack sometime. Nobody can have a perfect season like he’s having.” 

“I don’t know, Ennis,” Rocky put in. “I say he’ll win the Cy Young Award.” 

Ennis picked up a piece of garlic bread and wondered how it was made. Couldn’t be too hard if Betty Jo had done it, and so fast too. “That team’s on the way to the World Series.” 

“We always watch the Series together, when we can,” Betty Jo said. “Since you seem to be a baseball fan, maybe you can join us for a game or two.” 

Probably Jack wouldn’t take too kindly to that. It had been good, the few Monday Night baseball games on ABC they’d watched together. Ennis had never got in from the training until the sixth inning, but Jack always filled him in on what he’d missed. 

“Mom,” Tag interrupted, “the Natural wants some more spaghetti.” 

Betty Jo just stared at him, though the little one next to her was making sounds unmistakable. Tag rolled his eyes. “I mean, Davey wants more spaghetti.”

“Thank you for paying attention to your little brother, Terence.”

She put a small amount on the boy’s plate and cut it up for him, since it was clear he had no ability to eat it any other way. Half the time, Ennis had seen, he used his fingers instead of any fork or spoon. The family took no heed of it, so he wouldn’t either.

He’d not ever been close to any child who was retarded. Though the boy seemed to be growing normal in his body, maybe a little short, Rocky had explained to him early on that he wouldn’t ever go beyond a young age in his understanding. He had Down Syndrome and other stuff that would keep him a child even when he was a grown man. He had that look about him that most kids with that problem presented, his face different, marking him. Davey didn’t look like mother or father, just like himself. 

A few times when he’d been out in the stable with the three year olds, that Ennis mainly had a hand in training, BJ had come along with Davey in tow. The first time, she’d explained that the child liked the horses but they had to be careful when he was around them, since he had not much sense of danger. Ennis had looked down at him, thinking he had no son, and not knowing exactly how to deal with him. Then he leaned over the boy.

_“You want to touch this horse?”_

_Davey had blue eyes, like his mom, the only one of the boys who did. He nodded like he meant it and then held up his arms. He might not say much, but he understood._

_“You’d best pet them like this, hand flat.” Ennis held out his own hand and then took the boy’s fingers to pull them straight. “Just on the neck. I’ll show you. You ready?”_

_Up the kid went in his arms. Surely he weighed less than he should, though he seemed healthy enough to Ennis, who didn’t really know much about these things. He held Davey and made sure he didn’t do anything to spook the horse or hurt him, made more sure the boy stayed safe. The smile on the boy’s mushed up face was one reward, but the smile on BJ’s was better._

_“You’re good with kids,” she realized. “Do you have children of your own?”_

_“Two girls just about grown,” he admitted._

_“Not here with you.” He knew she meant it like a question._

_“Nope.”_

_Davey made some noise that he wanted to get down, so Ennis put him on the stable floor. He went over to his mom’s leg, wrapped an arm around it, and then stuck a thumb in his mouth._

_BJ must have seen Ennis thinking that was not quite right, cause she said, “He’s fine. This is natural for him.”_

_“Natural?”_

_She laughed a sad laugh and tousled the brown hair on Davey’s head. “I didn’t mean to say that! Tag and Matt, that’s what they call him.”_

_He almost didn’t ask, but he decided he wanted to know. “How come?”_

_“Oh, it’s a very old-fashioned term for people like Davey. It means he has below average intelligence.”_

_I’ll say, Ennis thought._

_“But I like to think it’s because he’s a natural part of the world,” Betty Jo went on. “Just because people with Down Syndrome don’t fit into the image of how we want our world to be, that doesn’t mean there haven’t always been people like him, all through history. He has a place here, just like we do. He deserves it. The rest of us just have to open our eyes to see it, and open our hearts to help him find his place.”_

Nevertheless, BJ sure didn’t like it when Tag or Matt called the youngster The Natural, though twice now Ennis had caught her saying it herself. 

“Hey, Mom,” Tag said as he was working on his third plate of spaghetti. The kid sure did know how to eat, though his thin frame didn’t show any results. “Since we’re talking about inviting Ennis to watch baseball with us, how about you ask him if he’s ever seen your favorite show?”

“Oh, yeah!” Matt’s eyes was all lit up as he leaned over the table, fork in hand. “We could invite him over for that, for a family viewing.”

BJ had gone red in the face and seemed half-annoyed, half-amused by the teasing. “Oh, you stop it, boys! I’m sure Mister Del Mar isn’t interested in what I like to watch on TV.”

“I thought you wanted to convert the whole world over. How could anybody not love Captain Kirk?” Tag managed to get the words out around the last forkful of food he’d shoved in his mouth.

“And don’t forget Mister Spock! They go together, right?” Matt wasn’t gonna be left out of the chance to make his mom squirm, though Ennis couldn’t see why she had that reaction. _Star Trek_ was a favorite of Monroe’s, too. He knew Junior and Jenny had watched their share of episodes, though he’d never caught it himself. 

“Yes, they do go together,” BJ said, “as anyone can see. Teamwork is important, whether on the Enterprise or on a ranch like ours. That reminds me that since Matt helped me with dinner, it’s your turn to clean up, Tag. Will you be staying for some poker with our guest?” 

Ennis was amused over the way she kept calling him a guest. He was amused over the whole family, to tell the truth, and he didn’t mind when he was told to just sit in the room he’d been in before, that they called the family room, while things were put to rights after dinner. The oldest boy had someplace he was going later on that night, but he was willing to sit down at the kitchen table for a while over some cards. After he was done with the dishes.

As soon as the table was cleared and wiped off, Rocky produced cards and real clay poker chips, that Ennis had seldom seen, and he was invited back to the table. BJ got busy getting him and Rocky more beer, making a point of not setting anything in front of Tag’s place. She found some pretzels too and poured them into a blue plastic bowl.

Finally she came around and put her hand on Ennis’s shoulder, which would have startled him except he saw her coming. He wished she hadn’t touched him, didn’t seem right in all ways, but he wasn’t gonna shrug her off. 

“I’m sorry I won’t be joining you,” she said politely. “If there’s anything I can get for you, please just let me know.”

Matt smirked. “Don’t worry, Mom, we’ll holler. Though I doubt you’ll hear us. You’re always dead to the world when you get going.” 

“Matt,” Rocky said, trying to act stern around a smile of his own. “You leave your mother alone. Go on, BJ, have a good time.” 

Ennis had no clue what they were all going on about, and he wasn’t gonna ask. 

BJ didn’t say anything more, just went around to give Rocky a kiss direct on the lips, almost like she was leaving for some place serious. When she took Davey’s hand and turned to the stairway, Davey broke away from her. To Ennis’s surprise he came over to him and clutched him in a big hug, bumping his head against Ennis’s chest, hard enough to sting. At first he didn’t know what to do, but then he closed his arm on the boy’s back, fingers spread. The kid had no notion that his hugging might hurt and just wanted to say with his arms what he couldn’t say in words. 

“He’s an affectionate rascal,” Rocky said, at just about the same time BJ said, “You’ve got a fan, Ennis. Come on, Davey, let’s go upstairs.”

Ennis had picked up the basics of poker long ago, even before he married, even before he met Jack, and he’d practiced what he knew a few times over the years. But still he felt uneasy before they started, him sitting across from Rocky with the boys to each side. Poker was a game of trying to get inside the other man’s head, to see through his eyes, and know what drove him. He had no real need to do that for the fella who was his boss, as he seemed a fair man. He had no desire to do that with the boys, and more important, he needed to guard himself from being known by this family. Rocky spread cards to determine who would deal first, so Ennis tucked in his arms, wished he was wearing his hat, and pulled an eight.

Turned out that the boys and their dad talked a good game of poker better than they played it. So long as they stayed with five card stud, Ennis did fine. Nothing fancy, but he wasn’t losing, and the chips piled up okay. They’d each anted up five dollars to buy in. He was to the good by the time the first half-hour passed and the first beer was drained. Five card draw didn’t seem to be his game when they switched to that, until he got the hang of it and realized the boys were overplaying each hand. Rocky was careless and didn’t always seem to know the value of what he held. When Rocky called for a bathroom break an hour later, Ennis had just bluffed his way to a win.

Rocky drained his beer and stood. “You got me that time. I thought for sure you had two pair.”

“Stone-face Ennis,” Matt said from over his chips, a smaller pile than when he’d started. Ennis had most of them now. “You don’t show a thing, do you?” 

The boy showed it all, from the way his eyes got wide when he was dealt a pair of any kind, to staring sideways when he was bluffing. Ennis should have felt shamed to be taking the kid’s money, but he figured it was a life lesson that needed to be learned. 

When they got back to the table and playing, Tag started ragging his dad about why he wasn’t a big winner, since he was the oldest at the table at age forty-five. 

“What’s that old saying? I’d rather be lucky at love than at cards any day of the week, and that’s the truth.” Rocky helped himself to a fistful of pretzels that he spread out on a napkin.

The boys moaned out loud, putting it on good so they were probably heard above stairs by BJ, doing whatever she was doing. 

“Jeez, Dad,” Matt said, “you and your lovey-dovey stuff. Not in front of Ennis.”

“You’ll understand some day,” Rocky said with smile. “And I’ll bet that Mister Del Mar knows what I’m talking about. Ennis, are you fortunate enough to have been lucky in love at least once in your life?”

He’d been trying to keep a poker face through the evening, even during dinner, and now wasn’t any different. But him and Jack had a no lying thing going. It seemed to him lying now to these folks fell under that. 

He cast his eyes down to the brown grain of the table and reflected that in their own way the Buckminsters were as snoopy into his business as the men at the Dutton warehouse back in Amarillo had been. Except it was harder to keep his mouth shut with the family being decent people and him owing them for taking a chance on him. 

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I been lucky that way.” He straightened up a pile of red chips, knowing that nobody could read his mind or his heart but feeling like maybe his feelings were showing anyway. “But seems I’m lucky at cards, too, doesn’t it? Matt, you gonna make a bet?” 

The boy did, a foolish one, it turned out, and there wasn’t any more mention of love at the poker table. Ennis should have known playing like this with a family instead of a group of men at the back of the bar in Riverton would be different. 

The sun had disappeared when Tag pushed his chair back. They’d agreed to aim for nine as a stopping point and then extended it to nine-thirty. “I got to go.”

His father, who’d been dealing, shuffled the cards and said, “Take my truck and be back by one. And keep your eyes open, son. I don’t think there will be a repeat of what happened last night, but you never know.” 

“Okay, Dad, I’ll be careful. Don’t worry. I’ll be over at Jerry’s, I guess.”

Rocky nodded, but his eyes followed the boy as he brought his can of Coke over to the sink to rinse it out before he trashed it. Ennis didn’t see any reason for the family to be concerned and said so.

“Likely your horses were took by some drifters. They won’t be back.” 

“We didn’t used to have those problems in the Moreno Valley, but I guess times are changing. It could be kids took them with the intention of selling them for drug money.”

Ennis shook his head. “Too hard to turn them over. Your horses are all branded, aren’t they?” 

“I guess you’re right.”

“Matt said Jersey had Betty Jo’s brand. I wasn’t aware you were running two brands on this outfit.”

That brought a small smile to Rocky’s face. “That happened years ago. I got BJ her own brand for her birthday. Bar BJB. She was really tickled by that. We don’t use it much, though. I don’t think there’s another animal right now that has it.” 

Ennis pushed his chair back. “Guess it’s time for me to be heading home.” 

“You’ll have to give us a chance to win our money back another time,” his boss said. “But before you go, Ennis, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Those two horses you’re training. Do you think they’d work here on the ranch?” 

The thought had occurred to Ennis almost immediately, but he’d shoved it away for the reason he gave Rocky now. “They ain’t purebreds. Nothing like what you lost.” 

“It doesn’t matter since we’re not replacing breeding stock. I just need good working horses. The insurance on this won’t come right away, and I need replacements that aren’t too pricey. You’ve got, what, a gelding and a mare? And you told Betty Jo they were almost ready to be sold.”

“One’s further along than the other. The mare’s still skittish. I’d like another week or two with her.”

“But the gelding’s good to go?” 

“Might be.” 

“I’d want to look them over first and see if they’re what I have in mind, but it seems logical—”

Matt, sitting back with only two legs of his chair on the tile floor, groaned again. “Dad, find some other word instead of logical, would you? It’s bad enough that mom uses it all the time.”

“I’m having a business conversation with Mister Del Mar, son. What I was saying, Ennis, is that there’s no sense in looking miles away for working horses when there might be two just a few minutes down the road. What were you thinking of asking for them?”

Ennis considered and then decided to cut the man no slack. Business was business, and he had feed bills to pay and two or three more horses to buy in order to start the process all over again. “If you like them, eight hundred for Samson and nine for Delilah.” 

Rocky didn’t blink. “Sounds fair. Do you have a trailer to haul them here or should I come over tomorrow and check them out?”

No way he wanted any member of the family out by his and Jack’s house. “Neither one are trailer scared. I’ll bring them tomorrow.” 

“Okay, then, let’s see how it goes.” 

Ennis went out into the cool night air just as Tag was backing the black Chevy Silverado from the garage. He stopped to give the kid room, looking up at the cloudy night sky while he waited.

That’d gone okay. Despite having his arm twisted by BJ so he had no say in the matter. Hadn’t made no fool of himself, hadn’t told too much of himself, neither, and if Rocky looked favorably on Samson and Delilah, he’d just made his first sale. Might be he’d be riding the gelding regularly at the Buckminsters. 

Tag drove out fast with the gravel from the driveway spraying out from under his wheels. Ennis raised his hand but got no response and probably wasn’t seen. He hoped the kid wasn’t sore to have lost some of his earnings to the hired hand.

His own old blue truck, that’d made the trip all the way down from Wyoming, then done the round trip again, and then another time, and then finally took him twice to New Mexico—more than he’d ever thought he’d ask of it—was parked under a scrub oak, angled to catch the shade during the day. He walked over, feeling light in his heart. He’d have to check when the next auction was, cause he thought the chances were high that Rocky would find the horses acceptable. There might be one this Friday. 

Ennis paused with his fingers curved around the handle of the pick-up. Jack was coming home this Friday…. Well, it could be that Rocky wouldn’t want the horses, and there wouldn’t be any need to find new ones. He’d see. 

He opened up the door, turned the key, and put her in gear. The headlights played against the front of the Buckminster house, where there was one of those iron cut-outs that some folks put for decoration on their ranch. This one was just about life-sized and showed one cowboy, one cowgirl, and three little cowhands in a row. The Buckminster family. Rocky surely was stuck good on his woman, Ennis pondered as he turned the truck and headed down the gravel road toward Route 38. As much as if he was branded himself. But he didn’t seem to find the situation a bad one, even with the burden of that youngest child who’d hugged Ennis so sweet. 

Ennis rolled down his window and stuck his elbow out in a casual way, driving with one hand and liking the cool of the breeze. Lucky at cards, that he definitely was. And, true enough, in other things, too. 

*****

On Wednesday Rocky took Samson right away and agreed to take Delilah as soon as she was seasoned according to Ennis’s judgment. He wrote out a check for the whole amount that morning and handed it over with a smile. Ennis had the feeling they were both satisfied with the arrangement.

The sooner he had the mare ready for the Buckminsters the better for him, so in the hours after work he took her out for a long trail ride in the foothills behind his and Jack’s place. There was a pathway that went up from where their little forest of pine and oak petered out. It snaked around the back of the property and then went on to the Carson National Forest, that included peaks that were over twelve and thirteen thousand feet. Him and Jack’d wondered if they kept following the trail, would it take them all the way to Wheeler Peak over by Taos, the tallest one around? The ride was a good test for Delilah. He rode her way past the long flat stretches that followed Shotgun Creek up to where she had to climb with real effort. Her hooves rang out loud as they struck against rock, and she built up a sweat managing the twists and turns as she took his weight up. He clucked to her in encouragement when she needed it. 

Finally he reined her in. This was as far as they were gonna go, though they were a long shot from being anywhere close to the top of any mountain. But the sun was setting on the Sangre de Cristos, turning them purple and blue in spots, picking out the pines in green glowing color, and telling the whole world that the day would end with a feast for the eyes. Time was, Ennis hadn’t paid attention to such sights, but he’d grown. He sat atop Delilah and leaned forward to pet her neck, like he’d shown Davey to do. 

“You see it too, darling?” 

She snorted and jerked her head, still feisty after the climb. She might see what was on the outside, in the wide world that had been made for the creatures, but no horse could tell about what was inside. In the rays of the setting sun, Ennis felt some peculiar feeling that he didn’t push away. Felt like, maybe, he was a part of this. Part of the wide world that included men and women as well as the mountains where he’d always felt safe. He couldn’t think of when he’d felt included before, not in his whole life. 

This was Jack’s doing. Never-give-up-Jack, except for that one time that he did give up. Even that had been good, for the misery of loss had finally kicked Ennis in the ass so he got on down to Texas and claimed his man. Claimed his place next to his man and a future they could make together. 

All of that, in a red sun ready to disappear behind the swelling earth and a good horse under him. Ennis twisted his mouth in what he used to call a smile but knew now was him giving due to things he didn’t understand. 

“C’mon, girl. Let’s go.” Too much of such bigness would make him begin to feel small, and he’d had enough of that feeling in the before-times. It was better to just take the bigness with him, and the connecting, and that part of the mountains that would always bring good memories of Jack and him together. 

He gave Delilah her head and she picked her way down the slope with no incident. Halfway home he started humming. The mare pricked her ears and seemed to listen as the shadows grew long. By the time they were back to the stable and he’d brushed her down, it was full dark. She disappeared into the night with a kick of her hind legs when he led her to the big field. She’d done good that day. 

Sometimes he took a shower in the evenings, especially when he had particular bedroom activities in mind, though other times Jack had whispered he liked the way Ennis smelled ripe of horses and honest sweat. Crazy man. That night Ennis didn’t bother, as there was nobody to be active with. He made himself two peanut butter sandwiches and poured himself a tall glass of orange juice, then ate and drank while standing in the kitchen, staring out the window over the sink and feeling the silence in the house, not in a good way.

After that he grabbed a beer from the fridge and took himself off to the back room and the TV. Jack had told him there was some soap opera on Wednesday nights that for real had a character who was queer, but he’d never seen it himself. Turned out it was past time for _Dynasty_ to be on. He turned on the evening news from Albuquerque instead and settled down in his chair. After ten minutes he dragged over one of the kitchen chairs that was in the room for some reason and propped his feet on that. Found the Sunday paper that he’d never read through, but it ended up spread out across his chest, ignored, as he sank lower and lower in the chair, his spine coming close to resting flat on the seat. Anybody would think he was sixty instead of near turned forty. His eyes started to close….

…when the phone rang. Ennis jerked up and reached out to silence the damn thing by picking it up. 

“Hello?” He blinked a couple of times to make himself come awake.

“Pucker up, Buttercup.”

“Jack?”

“If there’s somebody else you’re expecting to phone who’d call you Buttercup, you’d better tell me about it right now.” 

“There ain’t nobody who’d call me that,” he growled as he settled more comfortably in the chair, “including any man who doesn’t want his dick bit off the next time I have the chance.” 

“Oh, those are serious words. I’m scared.”

“You should be. So, how’re things going?”

“Good. The sessions are long but nobody goes to all of them. And I like Kansas City.”

“You found any of those gay bars there?”

“That ain’t what I meant, and you know it. I just got back from a Royals game with Andy and a couple fellows we met here.”

“Oh, yeah? Who were they playing?” 

“You won’t like it when I tell you.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, the Yankees. They won, five to three.”

“Twist, how come I been a Yankees fan all my life, and I ain’t never seen them play, and you waltz on over to Kansas City like you’re a fat-ass cattleman and you get to see them? Huh?”

“I bought a program for you.”

“You’re always buying programs wherever you go, that ain’t news.” 

“Got Don Mattingly to sign it.” 

“Don’t know if I believe you.” 

“It says ‘To Ennis, Best Wishes, Don Mattingly.’” There was a rustle of paper. “At least, that’s what it’s supposed to say. I think he skipped a couple letters.”

“How’d the talk go, the one you made with Andy?”

“Okay. We got some interest, mainly because I think our feed charges are so low. That’s one way to attract business since we’re just starting out, but I still think it’s a bad idea in the long run.”

“Did you do all the talking?”

“About half and half. I can’t fault Andy. He stood up like a man when the time came.”

“How many in your audience?”

“The main group just meets in the mornings, then everybody breaks up and goes to different rooms. They’re a lot smaller. I bet we didn’t even have thirty show up.” 

“That’s a shame, as much work as you put into that speech, with all the boards you got made up.” 

“It’s fine. I’ll be using it all for years to come. So, tell me, how’re things with you?”

“Pretty good. I made seven dollars and fifty cents last night.” 

“Oh, we’ve hit the big time.” 

“I was playing poker with Rocky and the boys.” 

Some dead air told Ennis he’d surprised his fella. 

“That explains where you were when I called last night. But that’s good,” Jack said, like he was being cautious. “How’d that happen?”

“Betty Jo asked me to stay over for dinner to get the family’s mind off somebody stealing their horses.”

“What?”

That got the reaction he’d been aiming for. Jack’s voice went from man deep to high-pitched. Ennis smirked. “No need to be squealing like a girl. Somebody took two of their working horses. Had the cops over and everything. So I ate their food, and after that I took their money.” 

“Ennis Del Mar to the rescue.” 

“Sure enough.” 

“Do they know who stole the horses?”

“Nope. Rocky was saying maybe kids for the drug money, but I doubt that.” 

“It’s possible.”

“You can’t hock a horse easy, Jack. A TV or a stereo or a ring, yeah, but not a horse.”

“Nobody got hurt, right?”

“I would have told you if that’d happened.”

“You be careful anyway. And I know you don’t want to lose Samson or Delilah.”

“I already did.” 

“What?”

Jack went off even louder and higher than the time before. This was getting to be a good game he was playing. 

“Samson’s gone.”

“Jesus, Ennis, I know how hard you—”

He cut in. “And Delilah in another week or so.”

He heard a deep breath being taken over the miles between them. 

“You are on thin ice, friend. What is going on?”

Ennis chuckled, and he liked the feel of it in his chest. “You are so easy to mess with, you’re like a child.”

“What’s happened? I leave the house for a few days and—”

“No need to get hot and bothered, it’s all okay. Rocky bought both of them, but he’s leaving Delilah with me until I get her straightened out.”

“You had me thinking the worst, you bastard.”

“I think highly of you too, bud.”

“What’d he pay for them?”

“Seventeen hundred dollars total.” 

Jack whistled. “That is great! That’s more than I thought you’d ask.”

“They turned out better than I thought, so why not? There’s value in them.” 

“You rescued those horses when nobody else could see value. I’m beginning to think you’ve really got something here. With your eye for horses, you could—”

“What d’you mean, beginning to think? Sounds like you ain’t had faith in me all along.” 

“Oh, I’ve had faith, I just didn’t know if there’d be a market for what you’re trying to do.” 

“So far, so good. Hey, you got any mosquito bites?”

“Oh, sure, they’re really biting at the Kansas City Radisson Hotel and convention center. Why, you got some?”

“Yeah, and they’re driving me crazy. It’s your fault.”

“Mine?”

“Yeah, for Sunday morning. How come you didn’t get bit?”

“My mama always used to say the bugs only bit those with sweet blood. I guess that’s what you got, you sweet man.” 

“You are full of shit.” 

“I haven’t been full of you lately.” 

“Don’t I know it.”

“Since we moved, we sure have been doing it regular.”

“That’s why I’m feeling it so hard now while you’re gone so long.”

There was a considerable pause. Ennis could almost hear Jack thinking.

“Feeling it so hard? You telling me you’re feeling up your hard dick while you’re sitting there talking to me?”

“That ain’t what I said.” 

“I bet it’s true anyway.” 

“It doesn’t matter, we’re not in the same room. Not even in the same state.” 

“There are solutions to that.” A sound like cloth sliding came over the phone. 

“Jack, what’re you doing?”

“Where are you, Ennis?”

He had some idea where this might be going from the tone of Jack’s voice, suddenly low and—there was no other way to put it—so sexy that the sound of it set up a vibration right through Ennis’s bones. 

He swallowed. “Eagle Nest.”

“I mean where in the house? Did you pick up the phone in our bedroom?”

“Nope, I’m in the back room in my chair with my feet up.” He grabbed the TV remote and lowered the sound all the way down to silent. 

“You know where I am?”

“I’m sure hoping not in the middle of the lobby.” He reached down to adjust himself. He might not have been hard when this talk started, but he was getting there.

“I’m sitting in one of those big leather chairs on wheels, that the hotels put in front of the desks in the sleeping rooms. And I’m bare-assed.”

Ennis closed his eyes for as long as it took to picture what Jack must look like now. That had been the sound he’d heard, Jack getting rid of his pants and shorts, one-handed. Wondered what his one-eye looked like now. Jack could get hard awful fast when his mind was occupied by the thought. 

“Jack, I ain’t gonna—”

“Sure you are. It’s just you and me, Ennis.” 

“I’m not into this phone sex thing. Maybe you’re familiar with it from all those guys you—”

“Shhhh,” Jack said soft. “It’s okay. Touch yourself, Ennis. Take yourself in hand.”

Was awful hard to draw in breath. Felt like somebody was strangling him. “I don’t need to.” His hand stayed on the arm of the chair. 

“You’re lying to me, Ennis Del Mar,” Jack said, more like he was singing, crooning. “You just said you’d been missing me. I’m touching myself. It feels real good.”

“I used to go without touching myself, for ten whole days I did without, before each time we met. I can make do without it.” 

“I know, you liked to torture yourself, beat yourself up for your sins. But there isn’t any need for it now, do you hear me? You’re over that, aren’t you?”

“I guess I am.” 

“I don’t want to do this alone.” 

Ennis looked around the room, as if there might be some escape for him there. But the paneling on the wall had no way out, and not the Sears air conditioner, not from his swelling dick and his hand that itched to touch it. 

He gripped the chair hard instead. “You got your legs spread wide?” he asked, his words quiet.

Sounded like Jack emptied his lungs, the sound of some success. “Yeah. I do.” 

“Got yourself slicked up with that KY?” 

A soft chuckle. “I never travel without it.” 

“Where’re you touching yourself? Run your thumb down straight, along that vein you got. Can you feel it?”

“Shit! Yeah, I feel it.”

“As good as when I do that for you, huh?”

Jack’s breathing got heavy in a hurry. “Nothing feels that good. Damn, I wish you were here.” 

“Me, too. If I was there I’d be naked in front of you.” 

“Ah, come on, take off your clothes, Ennis. At least pull your pecker out. Let’s do this together.” 

But Ennis was made of stronger stuff than that. Wasn’t he? “I’d kneel down between your legs, Twist, and take you in my mouth.” 

“Holy fuck.” 

There was a thudding sound, like the phone had been dropped to the floor. Ennis felt that nobody knew what he was doing for just those few seconds, so he grabbed his dick right through his jeans and gave it a couple of yanks. Then he let himself go when he heard Jack come back on the line. 

“What else would you do?” Jack asked with hardly any breath at all. The words came out light, like he was asking for a secret. 

Ennis dropped his head against the back of the chair, his face up to the ceiling, cradling the phone between shoulder and chin. He had both hands free now—though his fingers were digging into the upholstery—and it would be easy to reach down and unzip. Something in him resisted, but wasn’t that left over from the before-times? Before him and Jack told each other truths. Before he’d seen the connection between them, not just body, but everything else that they were too. If he was really doing this, living with a man and saying _fuckit_ to the closed-hearted people who didn’t understand, then there wasn’t anything wrong with having sex over the phone with his fella. Was there?

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

It didn’t take long to open up and pull out. “You know what I’m doing?” 

“What I wish I was doing for you?”

“What I did last night thinking on you.” 

“Does it feel good, Ennis?”

He groaned, cause it did. His turned to press the side of his face against the chair cushion. “Oh, yeah, it does.” 

“You’re going to do this with me. Jesus! Last I heard, you were kneeling between my legs sucking me off.” 

“You taste fine, Jack.”

“Nothing looks better than you doing that. Your hair so soft against my fingers.”

“I’m going down on your balls now. You always like that. Lean back so I can get them.”

“Nobody sucks balls like you, Ennis. Fuckinggodalmighty, it feels so good. Your sweet mouth.”

“They’re drawing up tight.”

“Don’t want to come so soon! I’m pulling you off so I can taste your mouth.”

“Kissing you.”

“My tongue’s going between your lips, and that’s my hand down on your dick, pushing yours off.” 

“I’m grabbing you. You’re so hard, Jack.” 

“Getting awful close….” 

“Wait for me, baby.” 

“Do yourself for me. I can’t wait too long. It’s coming soon….”

“Like on Sunday,” Ennis said with urgency. “Come in my mouth, lemme taste you—”

With a cry that was loud, one Ennis recognized cause for twenty-one years he’d been hearing it, Jack panted, “Here goes….” 

Four or five strokes of his own hand, that’s all it took to join that man sitting in a hotel room in Kansas City, that and knowing what Jack looked like when he came. His eyes closing, his face gone tight, his mouth stretched thin…and then him relaxing back, his eyes opening and looking with that little smile of his so fond on him. On him, on Ennis Del Mar, who thought so high on Jack Twist that he’d even have phone sex with him when he didn’t believe in phone sex no way, no how. 

Ennis opened up his own eyes and his vision of Jack disappeared. His hand was wet, and there were spatters of spunk on his jeans, but he made no move. He just sat there, trying to grab last hold of how good it’d felt. 

He sighed right into the phone. “I can’t believe you made me do that.”

“You know what day today is?” Jack asked low.

“The day you made me do that.”

“Twenty-one years. Up on Brokeback. You came into the tent with your hat in your hand, and I’d never seen anything I wanted more than you. That’s never changed.” 

If he hadn’t been so wrung out he would have sat up straight. “Twenty-one years? Exactly?”

“Uh-huh.” 

“How’d you know?” 

“I counted it up years ago, according to the Fridays you went to get supplies.”

“July 11? For that… second time?”

“Yep. Last night for the first time. Happy anniversary. We haven’t ever been together on these days before.”

“We ain’t together now.”

“Oh, yes we are.”

Ennis took the time to swallow. “I guess you’re right. I guess… you called last night with this in mind? Sorry I wasn’t here. I stopped off after the poker game to get gas, and then I checked on the horses. It was past eleven before I got in.” 

“Midnight my time here. That’s okay. Tonight went past my wildest dreams.” 

“Yeah, me, too. I bet your ass is sticking to that leather right now.”

“You’ve got that right. Want to hear something funny?”

“Sure, go ahead and amuse me.”

“Last night, after I didn’t get hold of you, I had some thoughts of just going straight to sleep, but my dick wasn’t cooperating.” 

“Your dick has a mind of its own.”

“So I went into the bathroom and reached into my kit to get the KY, but I didn’t turn on the light.” 

Ennis snickered. “I got a feeling I know where this is going.” 

“I bet you do. I greased myself up and went on back to bed, but then something felt funny. And smelled funny. All minty.”

“Colgate’ll do that to you.” 

“You win the prize. I put toothpaste on my dick! Imagine if you’d been here and I was trying to stick it to you.”

Ennis winced. “That wouldn’t feel so good, I’m sure. Let’s stay with the KY.”

“Okay. Hold on a second, would you?” 

Jack was probably taking off his t-shirt to wipe things up, but Ennis felt no need to clean himself. It felt kind of good, sitting in their own house with his dick in his hand, sort of like Jack had looked the Sunday before in the forest. 

“I’m back. Listen, you know how I’m coming home on Friday?” 

“Yeah, you’ll be landing at Angel Fire airport around four.” 

“There’s been a change of plans. We’re flying back early so we’ll land around eleven-thirty. After I drop Andy off at his place, I’m going to Taos for a late lunch meeting with two ranchers that Andy got lined up here at the conference. We’re going to Doc Martin’s.” 

“Okay.”

“After that I’m headed for one of their ranches to the north, to give the fellow an estimate firsthand on what the feedlot can do for his stock. So I was thinking, how about you meet me back at Taos after work? We can have a couple drinks, then decide where else we want to go afterwards.” 

That would mean two nights in one week that Delilah would go without training. “I don’t—”

“We can celebrate your sale.”

“Eat up my profits, you mean. This is your treat, bud, since it’s your idea.” 

“And that’s something we got to talk about…but not now. Okay. Then Doc Martin’s for drinks at six o’clock?” 

“All right.”

“You don’t have to sound so enthusiastic about it. If you don’t want to see my sorry face, then—”

“Shut up, Jack. I’ll see you on Friday at six.”

“I’ll be there. Hey, Ennis.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks. I never expected you to…. That was a real surprise. I had hopes but…. You’re always surprising me, you know?”

“You’d think you’d get used to it, then. You have a safe flight home.” 

“I’ll do that. You going to be okay after this night of excess and debauchery?” 

Ennis couldn’t help it, a laugh escaped his lips. Jack had a way of doing that to him. “Debauchery, huh? So that’s what we were doing. Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“Okay. Good-night, Buttercup.”

“Good-night, you idiot.” 

He put the phone down in its cradle and then kept his sight on it for a while. He knew the look in Jack’s eyes at that moment, and it was a good one.

_Happy Anniversary, bud._

*****


	3. Living Every Second

Jack Twist loved flying.

He’d never thought he’d have the chance to fly, not when he was a boy sitting up in his room, looking down the dusty road to the edge of nowhere. Him, not finishing high school, just a stump to endure his daddy’s lashing tongue, a no-account nobody who wasn’t any good at much, including bull-riding? Flying on a jet plane? No way. 

The Delta flight from Kansas City to Denver accelerated down the runway. Next to him, the assistant manager of Tulip Feedlot, Andy O’Donnell, looked like he’d prefer to ignore the whole process of taking off into the air, and he already had his nose buried in a paperback book. But Jack felt differently. He looked out the window to see the world flashing by, not wanting to miss a second. He felt the stressing rumble of the metal all around him and over the engine’s roar heard the whine of wheels against tarmac. 

Not missing a second. Living it. That was part of his outlook on life, first realized years ago, repeated to himself over and over, but never truly meant until November 7, 1983. Now, eight months later, he knew what that felt like, beyond the way a teenager meant it: to take in whatever life gave a man. The bad and the good, the pain and what most people would call joy. 

Jack looked down at his lap where his fingers were folded against each other, with no tension to them. He’d never thought he’d fly. Sitting in his room late at night long after his parents had gone to sleep, he’d never thought that he’d be with a man either, the way his body had been crying out for even at seventeen years of age. Never feel the weight of a man on him or have the chance to put his lips to a stubbled cheek. Get fucked. Find whatever the hell it was his boy’s heart seemed to be aching for, way past what it was his boy’s body erupted to each night, just thinking on it…. 

Life had been his enemy, he’d thought for years after those nights. Cruel to send him an answer to the questions he’d barely known enough to ask, to dangle in front of him the person he needed to satisfy that ache, and then hold that person for twenty fucking years just outside his reach. 

The plane banked to the right, and the city outside the window tilted, the sky disappearing with only the streets of Kansas City filling up his sight. Jack could tell how Andy tensed without looking up, and there wasn’t any talk going on elsewhere on the plane. People always got a little nervous, he’d learned, during take-offs and landings. 

For so many years he’d dreamed of living with Ennis. Dreamed of it, shook for it, cried over it, tried to turn away from it, came back to it because he couldn’t stay away, hated himself for longing for it so, and finally realized he’d have to let go of what was his soul-deep need. He’d walked away, telling himself nobody got everything they wanted.

The pilot straightened the plane out, the whine of the engines changed, and they began the long, sure climb up past thirty thousand feet. 

And now what he’d thought would never happen was his: Ennis next to him, in life day to day. In their bed every morning. Most mornings, anyway, unless he was traveling for Tulip or he woke after Ennis got up early to take care of his damned horses. 

Life… maybe hadn’t been his enemy. Only playing a game with him, asking him to really, really need it, need it enough that the pain of not having it forced him away, because nobody could take that much pain… before sending Ennis to him, hat in hand, at the McCormack dealership on a Thursday night. 

He thought on that night often. Ennis hated bright lights, but there he’d been, standing in the light meant to illuminate all Fords. Jack could remember well how his heart had thumped in his chest to be seeing the man he’d believed he’d never see again, and how Ennis had looked that day. 

Like a bastard risen from hell to haunt him. Like the answer to questions he wasn’t asking any more, too late arrived. Like a complication he had no room for…and the only man he’d ever wanted with all of him, body and heart and if there was a soul, then that, too. 

Ennis, standing there asking him out to dinner. 

What was that line from that book he’d read to Bobby? He’d figured it was a good thing to do, reading to your son, and he’d tried five different books before he realized not a one was going to catch the boy’s interest. _Alice in Wonderland_ had been a really bad choice, and they’d put it down not five pages in. But Jack had finished it himself in the late night hours, when he couldn’t sleep, as often happened to him those days. It was a price he was paying for his many sins, he’d thought. That one line from the book stuck with him. _Believing six impossible things before breakfast._ Something like that. 

Jack leaned toward the window, taking in the edge of the wing and the suburbs below, not wanting anybody to notice the smile he couldn’t stop. Ennis, finally figuring out that he needed Jack the way Jack needed him. That was six…six hundred impossible things all rolled into one. 

Oh, yeah, he loved to fly. To see the whole world spread out under him. Free. He didn’t often feel that way. As a gay man he was trapped in more ways than he could count and, as a man who loved Ennis, he’d been trapped that way too. 

But now, here he was, flying back to New Mexico because Ennis was waiting for him to come home. If there was any ball and chain that went with their arrangement, like men sometimes joked about with marriages, he sure didn’t feel them. Free at last to be who he was. To be with the man he wanted.

Impossible, maybe, to that seventeen-year-old boy, but waiting an eternity had done the trick, and here he was. 

“Something funny out there?” Andy was looking over to him, his finger marking the line he’d been reading.

He abandoned the widening landscape and the bank of gray-white clouds to the north. Seemed that his boss had caught his smile anyway. 

He shook his head. “Nothing.” But since Andy kept looking, he said, “I’m remembering something a friend said to me, about a cloud shaped like a hedgehog.” 

It seemed Andy wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t find anything to smile about. “Okay,” he said. “I guess you had to be there.” 

“I guess.” 

The seat belt sign had gone off. The stewardesses were rolling out the cart so everybody would have their chance to order a Bloody Mary before breakfast. Andy closed his book and stuffed it in the pocket of the seat in front of him. 

“I called Carolyn last night to let her know you were dropping me off early. She volunteered to meet us at the airport, but she’s got to take Heidi to playgroup, and—”

“It’s okay, I’ve got it covered. I got time to take you to your house and still make it to lunch in Taos.”

“That’s what I told her. Little ones sure do complicate the schedule.”

Jack liked Andy, despite his sometimes irritating ways. He wasn’t nearly as bad as the lot manager, anyway, whose brand of conversation was heavy on the “I thought I told you….” Jack could get along with about anybody, he’d found over the years. During this trip to the cattle convention, they’d had the chance to relate person to person, not boss to employee. The Royals game had been the ice-breaker, and after that Jack could tell that Andy was more easy, not trying to impress. 

But Jack was a long way from being easy right back. He had a big secret to hide, namely the six foot, two inch man from Wyoming who’d breathed heavily over the phone with him two nights before. There was no chance of living openly when he was working for Tulip Feedlot, especially with Ennis still finding his way in the being queer department.

“Just wait until she’s grown and in high school. Those years when they think they’re wise as can be, but before they can drive, they’re killers.”

“How is your son doing? Bobby’s his name, right?”

“Bobby’s doing okay. We had a little problem back in the winter, but we got that straightened out.”

“It can’t be easy, being an absentee father.” 

“He’s almost eighteen, by the end of this year. Past the point of needing me hanging around.” 

“Any time you need some time to go see him, you say the word. Families are important, and I don’t want to be the cause of you losing touch with yours.” 

Jack didn’t mind the man speaking on things he had no experience of, but he did feel some guilt that he’d not been back to Childress in a while. Lureen had recovered okay from her mastectomy, she was enduring the chemo pretty well, she had her mom and her dad to help her out, the whole town was scrambling to do right by the Newsomes, and there was nobody who wanted to see his smiling face. A few for sure who didn’t want to see his face at all, his ex-father-in-law one of those, and three others who’d stopped him and Ennis on the road this past February. But Bobby was his son. 

“I’ll let you know,” Jack said. “Maybe in a couple of weeks.” 

“I guess…” Andy fixed his eyes on one of the flight attendants up at the front of the cabin, asking if somebody wanted orange juice, tomato juice, or a scotch. “I guess there’s no chance you’ll reconcile with your wife? The divorce is final?” 

“It sure is.” 

“You know that Carolyn and I attend Living Water Baptist Church in Raton. There’s a group there for divorced and single parents. Maybe you’d like to….”

“Thanks, Andy, that just isn’t my style.”

“Well, if it ever is, we’d love to invite you any Sunday and introduce you around.”

He couldn’t help but see what was going on here. “Let me guess. Witnessing Sunday was the weekend before last.” 

At least the man looked embarrassed. 

“Don’t let it bother you, I’ve been down that road myself.” Lureen had dragged him to church for almost two years once they’d got married. He’d managed to keep going for four months after his first trip to Riverton and finding Ennis again, but after that he’d quit pretending in church for good.

“I sure hope,” Andy was saying, “you’ll find a good wife soon. It’s not good for a man to live without a woman. It leads to unhappiness and all sorts of problems. We aren’t made for it, if you know what I mean.”

“Marriage is definitely not on my list of things to do right now.” The lie that wasn’t really one came out of his mouth with no hesitation. “I take it you and Carolyn get along fine?”

“Of course we do. Before we got married, I thought I’d go out of my mind, all the urges I was subject to as a young man…. Marriage was a Godsend.”

Jack didn’t let himself show his amusement. Andy was only nine years older than Bobby, and still a young man to him. 

“I think I know what you mean.”

“Then you’ve got to be thinking of marriage again soon. You shouldn’t be resigned to living a life alone. It’s not God’s plan.”

“Just because I said I wasn’t thinking of marriage doesn’t mean I’ll be alone.”

That took Andy back. It was almost comical to see his face change. “Oh. I see what you…. I never think of that, living with a woman without the benefit of vows. Southern Baptists don’t look at things that way, you know.”

“I know.” Jack glanced out the window. They were flying through a wilderness of white, the clouds closed in all around them, and there wasn’t anything to see. “You ever think of looking past your Baptist ways, Andy?”

“I’m baptized, and I’ll never give up my faith in my savior, Lord Jesus Christ. But I’m not close-minded. I don’t think you can go through Texas A&M without some sort of intellectual curiosity being instilled by the professors.”

“I can’t say that I’ve ever thought of Aggies as being tops in that department.” 

Poke an Aggie and stir up a hornet’s nest, but Jack had said it with a full smile, and he reckoned the man would know he was only teasing. 

“You’d be surprised.” 

Jack hit the button that tilted his chair and pushed back all the way, since there wasn’t anybody sitting in the row behind. There were only a few people around them, as it seemed Friday at the crack of dawn wasn’t a popular time to fly. Then he crossed his arms behind his head. There was no way he could cross his legs, not the way the airlines packed the seats in. “Okay, go ahead.”

“What?”

“Surprise me. Give me an example of your open-minded Aggie ways that would turn your pastor red.” 

Andy caught his lower lip in his teeth, making him look as young as a college freshman, with his Marine-short haircut and horn-rimmed glasses. “I….”

“Can’t think of anything, can you?”

“Sure I can, wait a minute. Did you see the Sunday _Dallas Morning News_ about a month ago?”

“Nope.”

“We were visiting Carolyn’s parents, and I read an article about this Renee Richards person. That book he wrote is coming out in paperback. You know, the one who went from being a man to a woman.”

Sure he knew about Renee Richards, but Jack was shocked right down to his blue-striped shorts that Andy would talk on such a thing. Richards being first male and then female and the questions that raised came close to matters that were at the core of Jack’s life. He had no idea why a good-looking man could make his heart beat fast and his dick stir, and why he’d always had to work at it to get a rise with a woman. He wished he did know; wished he’d known back in the early days of Brokeback and after he’d started making the long trips to Wyoming, because maybe then he would have been able to clearly explain things to Ennis.

“I’ve heard about her,” Jack said, trying not to show he was talking cautiously.

“Him.”

“If she had that operation, I’d say there isn’t much him left.” 

“God made him a male. I read that article.”

Jack waited for more, but there wasn’t any. “That’s it? Your big example of having an open mind is just reading?” 

“I can’t say I understand what drove him to do that. You’d think there would be laws against it, like there are against sodomy for homosexuals.”

The old familiar anger rose up in him, that he easily tamped down to simmer. It wouldn’t do him any good to give in to it. If he could stand the preaching at him, then he shouldn’t get all riled up about an ignorant man’s thoughts on homosexuals. His better sense told him to glide over this and start talking about something else, like his doubts that the lot was pricing feed right or how it seemed odd that Corliss was having him sell off two of the older trucks. But he’d never been able to leave well enough alone, as Ennis had told him more than a few times. Lureen, too. 

“Sodomy laws? That doesn’t sound like something that would come to your attention.”

“It’s true I don’t know any homosexuals.”

“I’ve heard that in a lot of states, the law means what men and women do together too, and not only men who do it with men.” 

Andy glanced at him sideways, with his thick glasses making his eyes look like a fish’s in a fishbowl. The stewardesses were but two rows away now. “I’ve heard that, too.” 

“I never did like the idea that the law could peep into my bedroom and see what me and Lureen were getting up to.” 

That was more than Andy wanted to hear, he could tell that, but he wasn’t going to back down. Jack pressed the button again and pulled his seat upright. “Privacy’s important to me. Isn’t it to you?”

“Of course it is. The less government we have, the better.”

“Then you see my point, because I agree with you. I don’t want anybody looking in on me, and I won’t go looking in on anybody else. I’d just as soon those laws went away.” 

For a second Andy looked confused, like he wasn’t sure how he’d ended up agreeing on the issue with Jack, but then he recovered and said, “People like that, homosexuals, they’ve slipped outside the help of the church community. If they had enough support, they’d—”

“What?” Jack said, not sharp, but almost kind. A man could be twenty-six, hell, he could be fifty-six and not have encountered much of life. “Change their ways?” 

Ennis had tried and tried. This Andy O’Donnell, he just didn’t know. Nobody who hadn’t been down that road knew. How could a man change what was? Jack could remember a time or three when Ennis’s jaw would clench right before they’d fall into a kiss….

Years before, Jack reminded himself. Not now. 

“Maybe they’d change,” Andy was saying. “You never know until you try. I think it’s one of the things God asks of us, to help people like that.” 

“I’m not getting on that bandwagon. Leave people be, that’s what I say. It’s none of my business.”

“If everybody thought that way, this world would never be a better place.”

“Now you know why I wouldn’t fit in at your church. I tend to go my own way. Drove Lureen crazy.” 

“You’d still be welcome, any Sunday.”

“Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?” The stewardess had arrived.

Five minutes later Jack was sipping coffee and looking out the window while Andy was buried in his book again, but not before Jack had noted the title. It was _Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do._ He didn’t imagine Andy had any idea what tough times were like: doubting your own self, having to fight for what you really needed, walking away from the most important person in your life. 

But he knew, because he’d been through those times. And now he was on the other side. Up in the air under the sun, going home to Ennis.

The plane, still climbing, went through the wisps of some clouds that teased the edges of the wings, but a minute later they were flying clear. Jack could see all the way to the ground, to the squared off fields of corn and wheat, to the lines of trees that separated one from the other, to the ribbon of water that cut through the land, going its own way, all of it far away as they traveled at speed above the earth.

Ennis had never seen such sights, because he’d never flown. Jack wished he could show him. Maybe he would someday. 

*****

 

Sooner or later, everybody who lived in or around Taos found their way to the Adobe Bar, where Jack was waiting. Him and Ennis didn’t get to town often; this was the first time they’d be here together. Jack still didn’t know his way around Taos the way he wanted to. 

The bar, Jack reckoned, was about a hundred years old, part of the old Taos Inn on the main drag of the town. It’d been renovated recently, and now there was nothing old-time about it. The Adobe was more than a bar, it was more like a general meeting place, with tables and chairs spread around a room with a high two-story ceiling and plenty of light coming in from above, a peculiar orangey-yellow light that made it seem like the sun was setting inside. The place was comfortable but upscale, for ordinary people and not drunks. The sign out front said most nights there was entertainment too, singers and guitar players. Some flamenco dancers were scheduled the next week. The music didn’t start until later in the evening, though, and Jack didn’t imagine they’d still be around. 

He’d thought of sitting at the bar itself to wait, but most of it wasn’t visible from the doorway leading in from the hotel lobby. Instead, he’d found the last unoccupied table for two in the crowded room, pushed up against the fake stucco wall. With his hat on the table in front of him, and a cool drink brought by a cute waitress about the age to date Bobby, he was set to wait for as long as it took Ennis to show. 

Which wouldn’t be long. Ennis was one of those who aimed to arrive on the dot, probably because he never wanted to call attention to himself. Jack waited for ten minutes, since he’d got there early, amusing himself by flipping through the local town guide, talking with the waitress, and anticipating seeing his fellow again. At five fifty-eight by his watch he started watching the doorway, and at six oh-two, there Ennis was. 

This wasn’t the back of beyond where they’d met so many times after not seeing each other for too long. They were in public, around people who they might know some day, the Moreno Valley community being small, and Jack had given some thought to how he would behave. This being a step out of their routine, he didn’t want to give Ennis any reason to pull back instead of thinking it was okay for him to make another move forward. 

So he didn’t stand up, he didn’t walk over, he didn’t pull Ennis into a hug, and he didn’t give in to wanting a kiss, as any other person in that bar would have done if they were greeting the person they shared a bed with after a week’s separation. He didn’t even wave. He waited for Ennis to find him. 

His eyes, though…. Those Jack didn’t try to control. Seeing Ennis standing in the doorway, taking off his hat, and his gaze roving around…. If he hadn’t opened his big mouth about a night on the town, they could be at home right now, in their bedroom, in their bed, where they could touch and a whole lot more. For a few seconds, it was painful to him, to be so far separated from his good-looking man. 

Jack had always thought Ennis was a fine-looking man. Gary called him weather-beaten, but he didn’t see it. Ennis had got better as he got older, like some statue, a work of art in a museum that shouldn’t ever be cleaned because that would take the aged finish off and ruin what the statue had become. 

Jack had been nearly blinded by the nineteen-year-old he’d seen outside Aguirre’s office. As he’d told Ennis before, he had interest right away, for sure. That had been the body. But then up on the mountain, they’d started that dance between them, where he got to know the person behind the mask that Ennis didn’t want anybody to see. Most people didn’t see, or maybe they didn’t want to bother, but Jack’d had pressing reason to figure out his sheep-herding partner. It’d been easy. More like natural, maybe, for Ennis and his shy eyes to end up smack in the middle of Jack’s heart. By the time they’d told each other they weren’t queer, a lot more than Jack’s body had been yearning toward the young man who was more edgy than any horse. 

Now the thirty-nine-year-old was looking around the room, and Jack stayed still, waiting for their eyes to meet. Much as he’d thought the young Ennis’s long legs, and fine ass, and deep voice, and strong arms were exactly to his liking back on the mountain, he liked today’s man better. Something about his lips getting softer, maybe, because they weren’t held so tight. And his eyes had become wider, more willing to take in the sights around him. His Ennis was tall and standing firm, like he was part of the earth’s gravity, and with a way of moving….

Or maybe it was that the two of them, they’d learned over the years exactly how to go after each other, so they were just about perfect together in bed…. 

No, that wasn’t it. Jack saw him take a step forward to check out the length of the antique wooden bar. That showed how skinny Ennis still was, barely keeping his best pair of jeans up on those protruding hip bones of his. Jack had complained more than once about being stuck with a needle when they got to rolling around. But that didn’t seem to matter to him and his lovestruck heart, for Ennis looked so fine…. It wasn’t just the bedroom part, not by a long shot, because that wasn’t enough for Jack, and at the moment if he could’ve gobbled up Ennis whole and made him part of himself, he would have.

The hostess who’d been talking to somebody at the other end of the room came walking toward the doorway. Before she got there he intended to catch Ennis’s attention somehow, because Jack wouldn’t put him through being asked who he was looking for. Before she had the chance to open her mouth, Ennis saw him. 

Five years ago, hell, one year ago, Jack would’ve bet one million dollars that he would never be looked on in public the way Ennis looked on him then. A light came into those brown eyes, nothing but glad in it, and those fine lips curved into what even Ennis would have to call a smile. 

Jack stood up as Ennis walked toward him, and when he got close enough, Jack put out his hand. They could shake like they were good friends, happy to see each other, and no more. 

Their hands slid together, Ennis’s palm warm against his, and his face so alive that it made Jack’s throat ache.

“I bet you been waiting a while, right? You always get to places early,” Ennis said, holding on to him no longer than he should. No squeezing either, but that was more than Jack expected anyway. Ennis pulled out the empty chair with a scrape against the wood floor and put his hat next to Jack’s. 

“Not too long,” Jack said. “How’re you doing?”

“Pretty good. How was your flight? Both of them? I meant to ask you on the phone if you got sick on that little airplane.” 

“No way. I liked that Cessna, the ups and downs. The smaller the better with planes, I guess, to really feel the flying. I think Andy was happy to get off it.” 

“You two get along okay?” 

“Uh-huh. He invited me to his church.” 

Ennis gave a little _huh_ along with a hitch of his shoulders, that Jack interpreted with no trouble as mostly a laugh. “Nobody’s gonna save your sorry soul.”

“I doubt I’ll see the error of my ways,” Jack said. “Since I’m finally doing things the way they ought be done.” Ennis directed his eyes down to the table, and about that time the waitress showed up.

“Can I get you something from the bar?” 

Ennis ordered a beer, a Bud, when he’d been mostly drinking Corona lately. Jack figured he wanted to establish that he was a regular sort of guy in a fancy place like the Adobe Bar. He didn’t comment on that, but he couldn’t resist teasing at least some.

“You must have left the ranch early to get here looking so good,” Jack said. 

Ennis glanced down at himself, as if he didn’t know he’d gone back to the house, shaved, showered, and shucked himself of whatever old pair of jeans he’d been wearing in favor of his best, plus a shirt Jack recognized. 

“I haven’t seen that shirt on you in a while,” he went on. White, crisp cotton, pearl snaps. Ennis had worn it on their first date after Jack had left him. “I hope you don’t think we’ll finish the evening the same way we did back in Amarillo.” Groping each other on the couch and shooting off in their pants—that’d been one hell of a first date. 

“You shut up, Twist,” Ennis said with no heat. “I got a message for you.” 

“Oh, yeah, who from?”

“Your old b—I mean, from the coach.” 

“Gary called? What did he have to say?” 

“Said to tell you he was seeing the light. Got some… found somebody in San Antonio that’s taken his eye. Sounds serious.” 

Jack sat back and laughed. “You’re kidding! Well, that didn’t take him too long. I can see I didn’t make a permanent impression on his heart.” 

“Would you quit?” Ennis’s gaze slid over to a young couple at a table nearby. “Pipe down. Let’s not tell the whole bar your business.” 

Back in February, Jack had despaired of Ennis ever finding any comfort zone with him in public, but they’d come so far since then that being told to keep his voice down bothered him not a bit. It sure didn’t shut him up.

“So who is it? Did he say?”

“If he did, I didn’t pay no mind. But I gotta ask, when did he start calling you Jack instead of John?”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Oh, he’s yanking your chain. He does that to me sometimes, to try to get me to react.” 

The beer was set in front of Ennis by the waitress then. He buried his face in the mug, but when he came back up for air he asked, “What’s that you’re drinking?”

“The Cowboy Buddha margarita. It’s the specialty of the house. Want a taste?”

He’d just been kidding. Ennis looked scandalized, like only men fit for the looney bin, as he usually put it, would stoop to be tasting another man’s liquor in public. 

“I guess not,” Jack said. “Okay, then, how about a toast?”

“None of that, now. There ain’t no need.”

“The hell there isn’t. Your first sale, that’s something worth celebrating.”

“Celebrating’s one thing, toasting’s another. If the drinks are on you, you bet we can celebrate.”

“The drinks and the dinner. Where do you want to eat tonight?” 

“You pick.”

“Okay, I got a place in mind. In the meantime, I got something for you.”

“Yeah, you told me, that program.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jack said with a grin, “that, too. Here you go.”

He reached down between his chair and the wall where he’d stashed a plastic bag, pulled a book from it, shoved Ennis’s straw hat to the side, and slapped it down on the table. 

“Just for you, baseball man.” 

The new first baseman for the Yankees was having a breakout year, and he’d signed the program on the front cover. Jack had taken care with it, making sure it wasn’t bent. Now he watched while Ennis fished in his shirt pocket for his glasses and put them on, throwing a look at Jack that dared him to make any comment. Then he picked up the program and ran the tips of his fingers over the autograph. Jack supposed most people wouldn’t think much of the reaction, but he knew his fellow. 

“Guess I see what you mean about the missing letters.” 

“I made sure he spelled your name right. Two N’s.” 

“Looks like only half his last name’s here.” 

“These guys, they get asked for autographs all the time. I guess they learn to do it fast that way.”

Ennis finally lifted his gaze to look on Jack. “Was this hard to get?” 

“Nope. We got there early and I saw a bunch of people hanging out by the dugout. I went down and was the last one to get his attention before the game started.” 

“I suppose Ron Guidry wasn’t around.”

“He wasn’t. But Mattingly’s having a great year, and he’s young. I thought maybe this autograph might be worth something some day.” 

“His average’ll probably go down after the All-Star break. But you never know.” Ennis flipped through the program, and then he slid it under his hat. “I expect I should say thank you.” 

Jack smirked and planted his elbows on the table. “I expect you should.” 

“When you start picking up after yourself, maybe I will.” Deliberately, Ennis looked at him like a school teacher not pleased. He took off his glasses and put them back in his pocket. 

“That’ll be a cold day in hell.” 

“Guess we’ll both have to wait, then.” Ennis’s mouth turned up on one side, in that way he had, that after all these years still tended to turn Jack’s insides to mush. And his outsides, especially his most important outside part, to the opposite. 

Just wait until he got Ennis home. He had plans…. Jack figured it’d been worth the aggravation he’d gone through to get that program signed. 

“I got something else for you.”

“You hush. That’ll have to wait until later.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s in this bag here.” 

“Oh, yeah? What is it?” 

Jack considered. “I think I’ll make you guess.” 

“Like I’m some kid? No way. What is it?”

“I guess you won’t find out, then. So, how’s Delilah?”

“Come on, you asshole, tell me what’s—”

“Tell me you dropped her off at the ranch this morning.”

Ennis shook his head. “Nope, I’ve still got her.”

“Shit. That means you’ll be disappearing this weekend again.” 

“I got things to do, Jack. We wouldn’t be celebrating if—”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Have the Buckminster horses been found yet?”

“You sound like BJ, expecting the best. You know they won’t ever turn up.”

“I know, it’s not likely. But no more trouble anywhere else?”

“Not that I’ve heard. Those guys who took the horses, they’re long gone. They won’t be troubling us. Better for you to put your mind to figuring out what’s going on at the feedlot with that Jeep.”

Jack frowned. “I almost talked to Andy about it, but then I thought I’d see what I could do this next week.” 

“You’re gonna feel awful dumb if it’s Hamilton coming out on the weekend to check things out, but not logging in.” 

“Corliss is there on the weekend a lot of the time anyway. You can’t pry the man away from the place. Besides, you know we’re a twenty-four seven operation. But I’m not thinking about work now. This is our night off. I was wondering, would you mind if we went someplace else before dinner?” 

“Like where?”

Jack pulled out the Taos Around Town guide that he’d been looking at, folded it over to the page he’d marked, and tapped the ad with his finger. “The Four Elements Gallery on Paseo del Pueblo Norte.” 

“That’s the street we’re on now.” 

“It’s long and this is on the other side of the plaza. Feel like a walk?”

“Why are we going to a rich man’s gallery?”

“Morgan’s got a show that’s opening there tonight. He sent us an invitation in the mail.” 

Ennis frowned down at his drink. “A show, huh. What kind of show?”

Jack shrugged. Sometimes, not all the time, but at times like these when they were testing out new stuff, living with Ennis felt like walking a narrow line. Jack was determined to walk free and confident, but you couldn’t manage a swagger when you were carefully putting heel to toe. They had to find the right path for both of them together, one that his skittish stallion would find acceptable. The trick was to not push too hard or too fast, to let Ennis see his way clear. Jack knew what he was asking hadn’t ever crossed Ennis’s mind, but he figured it was worth a try.

“Like the ad says, an exhibition of western art. We haven’t seen Morgan since we moved here, and I’d like to go.”

“I guess you think you can afford some of his fancy pictures.”

“No, I think he’s a friend, and I’d like to show my support. Our support.” 

“I only met him that once.” 

“But he lives around here, and it’d be nice to socialize with him and Janice, don’t you think? It’d be good for you to get to know him better.” 

“If that’s what you want, Jack,” Ennis said heavily, head-down, like he’d been asked to shovel manure for a couple of hours. 

“Oh, come off it, it won’t be that bad.” 

“If you say so. I got something to be done here in town too. Let’s drink up and go take care of that first.” 

But Jack had discovered he was partial to Cowboy Buddha margaritas, and Ennis had no objection to a second beer or a third. It was considerably past seven o’clock before they walked out into Taos on a Friday night. 

Ennis wouldn’t say where they were going; Jack didn’t mind. The sun was still up, but the feeling of a Friday night—time to relax, time to have a little fun—was on the streets. He put one hand in the pocket of his black jacket, the other being occupied with carrying the bag with Ennis’s program plus that thing he wasn’t telling about yet, and set himself to stroll. That matched his mood. He had Ennis’s full attention and hours of time too, ordinary time like he wanted it. Life lived and shared. There were no horses to take his man away.

All that plus the promise of wrestling Ennis in their bed once they got back to the place they were living in together, a dream come true to any version of Jack Twist that had existed over the last twenty-one years. They couldn’t touch under these circumstances. They couldn’t hold hands the way Jack had seen men do in the gay neighborhoods of the big cities like Dallas or Houston, not that he was particularly inclined to such behavior. Ennis wouldn’t ever want to hold his hand, anyway. Just as soon chop off his head.

He laughed softly as they turned onto the sidewalk. 

“What?” Ennis asked him. 

Jack couldn’t help but give him a knowing grin. “I bet you can guess.” 

He expected Ennis to look embarrassed, but maybe the crowd on the sidewalk made him feel more comfortable instead of more exposed. He looked right and then left, and then that shy little smile appeared. That was one of the things that’d made him stick around Ennis like a moth around a light, knowing that there were two men in one body: hard and tough and strong, and then sweet and giving and needy. Needing Jack. 

Both of those Ennises were unforgettable in bed, and that’s what they were both thinking of at the moment. Jack nudged him with his elbow as they started to make their way north. “Well? Will you play this guessing game with me?” 

“Hell, no.” But he’d caught Ennis smiling, and that didn’t go away. 

The sidewalk was crowded right outside the Inn and still crowded once they moved on a way. It seemed like half the county had aimed for Taos that night, plus there was always a number of tourists about.

After ten minutes of following his cowboy’s turns, down to the city plaza, through the crowd gathered there eating ice cream and listening to some woman singing what sounded like opera in the open air, then across two lanes of traffic, Jack asked him, “You know where you’re going?” 

“Course I do.” 

“Because if you don’t, I got a town map.” He tapped his inside jacket pocket.

Ennis gave him a sideways look. “I’m not surprised. You probably got a map for the house so you don’t lose your way to the bathroom. I never did know of a man like you for maps and programs and every fool thing like it.” 

“So, you know where you’re going?”

“The day I don’t, I’ll let you know.”

“I doubt it.”

Five more minutes of walking brought them mainly out of the flow of pleasure seekers starting their weekend. They cut through a small grassy area that the town was trying to call a park and emerged on a wide, busy street with a bank across the way. There was a line of cars going through the drive-through window and somebody opening the door to the main lobby, and it seemed that’s where they were headed.

Jack hadn’t thought he was being led to a honky tonk or a topless—or bottomless—bar, but he hadn’t expected this either. Even on their night out, after not seeing each other for practically a whole week, still business was on Ennis’s mind. Jack swallowed his resentment. His fellow had ambitions, maybe for the first time in his life, and though Jack thought Ennis was worse than a train gone rocketing down the tracks with no throttle control, he didn’t want to put on the brakes. He’d been trying hard not to interfere since the horses had taken up residence in the stable, with the exception of that kidnapping stunt he’d pulled last Sunday. Well, it had worked, but his pride wouldn’t let him repeat himself. He tried to find something to say that wouldn’t show the resentment he felt inside. 

“This is where you bank? I’m over at First State on Del Rio.” 

“I gotta get traveler’s checks for the auction Monday night.”

“Okay. You go ahead. I’ll wait for you out here.” 

Jack wished he had a cigarette, but he was trying to quit for the second time. Saying good-bye to Ennis at Pine Creek had started him up again, no surprise, and since then he was on again, off again. He hadn’t even taken a pack with him to Kansas City, but right now, standing on a corner with nothing to do but watch the cars pass by, a smoke would have been the perfect way to pass the time. 

An Eckerd drug store on the other corner took care of that problem, and before Ennis showed up again, Jack had crushed two half-smoked cigarettes under the toe of his best pair of shoes. He kept thinking he was better than the cigarettes and stopped himself from finishing, just like he kept thinking that someday Ennis would take the hint about how he spent his time. It hadn’t happened yet. 

He looked up, and there was Ennis with his loping stride coming out of the bank, heading for him. Whatever thoughts about being pissed off he might’ve been trying to work up disappeared along with the sweet breeze that came with the approaching sunset.

“You lighting up again?” Ennis asked, like he couldn’t figure out why Jack kept falling off the wagon. 

Jack took one last drag and then dropped the third butt to the sidewalk. He blew smoke and said, deliberately, “The only thing I’ll be lighting up the rest of the night is you.” 

Ennis looked at him from under the brim of his hat, and his eyes were dancing. “Huh. I had some ideas in that direction myself. We’ll see who lights up who. You sure you want to head for this gallery? We could skip dinner, too.”

It would’ve been easy to say _sure, let’s go home and do what we both want to do,_ but Jack resisted. He was looking at the long run, at him and Ennis ten years down the road and the way he wanted them to be then. Hell, the way he wanted them right now. Jack shook his head. “You aren’t getting out from under that easy.” 

Ennis took a step closer, with a look that made Jack wonder what had been on his mind while he was waiting in line inside the bank. “It’s you who’s gonna be under,” he said quietly, like they were in their own house and not standing on a street corner, although it was deserted at the moment. “Five fucking days without.”

Jack’s mouth went dry in an instant, and memories of being ridden by this man flashed through his mind, body sensations that had been driven deep over the years, as deep as Ennis went into him in all ways…. 

“You shithead,” he managed to get out past the tide inside that was rising and not falling. “No fair saying that to me here.” 

“This was your idea, Jack.” Ennis pulled back and tugged his hat low. “You want to torture us tonight, I guess I’ll go along.” 

They fell into step, heading back the way they’d come. “Not torture, just…. Hell, you’re enjoying this.”

“As much as you are, I reckon. You know where this gallery place is or you gonna be a pansy-ass and check your map?” 

It took another fifteen minutes before they got to the gallery, but they weren’t hurrying. The sun had mainly set now, the street lights were coming on, and as they walked closer to the plaza there were lots more people around. On every other street corner, it seemed, there was somebody playing a guitar with an open case in front of them, asking for a handout. Some of the guys looked like they were hard-up, with their next meal depending on what they collected that night. Most of those, Jack figured, were Mexicans who’d come north for work but found nothing. He’d come across plenty of day laborers in Texas, illegals who were willing to take on just about anything, they were that desperate.

But others playing guitars seemed more like they were doing it for fun. They stopped at one intersection where there were three guys dressed up with big sombreros on, singing in Spanish.

“Reminds me of Roberto,” Jack said. Ennis threw him a look from under his hat and they moved on. He wouldn’t take much teasing on that subject, Jack knew, although Ennis had brought him to meet the guy the night before they left Texas for good. 

_Jack didn’t know why Ennis had a sudden need to eat out that night, considering how resistant he’d gotten to doing so, saying they had to save their money. But Jack went when he was asked and found himself at an ordinary neighborhood Mexican restaurant in Canyon, not far from the apartment that Ennis used to live in. On the sly, Ennis talked to the hostess who seated them, and Jack saw him slip her a couple dollars. He pretended he hadn’t noticed anything and sat down for some pretty good food._

_Before they were even halfway through eating tacos and enchiladas, out came two guitar players from the back, dressed up in traditional Mexican troubadour outfits, including those big hats a real person never wore, as they were mainly for show._

_They sang a song to a couple over on the other side of the room who were celebrating an anniversary, it seemed from what was said. Jack thought the singers were pretty good at their trade, although he didn’t mention that, since Ennis was generally disapproving of anybody who put themselves in the spotlight._

_You could’ve knocked Jack over with a feather when the two guys came to their table next and Ennis didn’t give them the evil eye to keep them away. Instead, he put his fork down._

_“You listen to this,” he told Jack, and then he sat back._

_They strummed a couple of chords that Jack thought he recognized, and then a few more and he was sure. To keep himself from showing the feelings that washed over him, he clamped his jaw shut and stared down at his plate. Jesus. He never would have thought that Ennis…._

_They weren’t singing, but they were playing “Waltz Across Texas With You in My Arms,” a song that Jack’s disappointment with life in general had caused him to scorn. Hard experience had shown him that life wasn’t a romantic fairy tale, and there weren’t too many people who could boast of a storybook ending._

_Or so he’d told Ennis once. It seemed he had remembered. And Ennis was telling him, in his own roundabout, disguised, not-meant-to-be-said-out-loud way, that Jack’s doubts on good endings would be proved wrong._

_He sat there through every note, his eyes stinging, not daring to look across the table. Not at Ennis, who was practically telling the whole damn restaurant, filled with exactly six other people who weren’t paying any attention to them at all, that he and Jack were going to waltz through life together…._

No, Jack was not inclined to tease Ennis about Roberto, who he’d been abruptly introduced to after the music was finished. There had been an awkward silence, because Jack was finding it a little hard to breathe, trying to imagine the courage it’d taken Ennis to set this up. Even without the words sung…. As he shook Roberto’s hand he finally put two and two together and realized that here was the gay man who Ennis had tried to slug and got a black eye from instead, when Roberto had tried to pick up his Wyoming man for sex. No more was said at the time, as Jack knew Ennis wouldn’t want that. The two musicians went away, he and Ennis finished eating like nothing had happened, and then Jack drove them back to Prospect Drive for their last night there. 

He’d thanked Ennis in his own way. That’d taken a while and involved a fair amount of horizontal music making, and by the time they fell asleep, exhausted, he was pretty sure he’d got his message across. 

He knew that Ennis wouldn’t have done what he did if they weren’t leaving town for good, as exposing himself as a queer man wasn’t high on his agenda. Still, Jack remembered that night whenever his frustration over Ennis’s preoccupation with his business threatened to boil over, and he found some patience again. 

They were but a block away from the gallery when he began to have second thoughts. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, and he was pushing Ennis too far. He’d shown Jack how he’d changed in many ways; was there really a need for more? Just because he liked Morgan didn’t mean Ennis should, and just because Jack had other needs…. Besides, Ennis and an art gallery….

The place came into view then, a storefront with smooth, adobe-brown walls. The sidewalk outside was brightly lit. The window display showed some brightly painted Indian pots. There was a crowd inside, with people dressed well, crammed in elbow to elbow, involved in loud conversations that drifted out through the open door. Everything Ennis didn’t like and wasn’t. Jack stopped short of going inside. 

“Seems like there’s a good turnout,” Jack said. “Look, there isn’t really any need for you to go in there. I’ll say hello and probably be back in ten minutes.”

Ennis faced him. “I ain’t no kid to be scared by such things. It won’t kill me. But I gotta ask, this the way you lived in Childress?” 

Jack let out a laugh. “Hell, no. You’ve seen Childress. There’s not an art gallery in sight.”

“I blasted through Childress at night in a snowstorm going seventy, and I don’t aim to return. But is this the way you want to live here? I don’t know that this is what I had in mind.” 

“I just want to be sociable, to see Morgan.”

“Ain’t nobody ever accused me of being sociable, and I doubt you’ll change my ways at my age.”

Jack took a breath and then let it out as he realized that in the last months everything had changed, including what they’d learned they were willing to do in order to be with each other. Ennis was saying that, only not in so many words. 

“But you’ll do this because I’m asking.” Jack said it because he was sure.

A touch of Ennis’s hand to his hat, as if it would blow away in the conversational wind once they stepped foot inside. “What you think you are, Twist, the center of the universe?” he asked with the barest hint of a smile, for they’d mocked each other with those words before. “Come on, let’s get this over with.” 

Jack had never been to a gallery opening in his life, but he’d been to a few art museums, and he’d read in newspapers a time or two about an artist having a show like this. He led the way inside, putting on a show of knowing what he was doing and feeling comfortable. 

The place was two big rooms, one behind the other. The first room, pale wood floors with white walls and good lighting, seemed to have a little bit of everything on display: big paintings of landscapes, and horses, and what he guessed was modern art, with a hint of a Western feel to most of them. None of it by Morgan, he didn’t think. Most of the people were talking loudly to be heard over each other and the music coming from overhead speakers, and they were all holding glasses of wine. There wasn’t anybody there Jack knew. Not one turned their eyes to the newcomers, which was okay with him. 

Jack eased past a gray-haired man wearing a tweed sportcoat, looking for Morgan and trusting that Ennis would follow behind in the path he was making through the crowd. 

“Scuse me,” he said four times before he managed to get to the second room. At least it seemed there was more space to breathe, and there was Morgan holding court in the far corner. 

Jack paused in the doorway and looked around. Most of the paintings he didn’t recognize, but he had seen a few before, the times he and Lureen had been invited to dinner in the Kirkpatrick home. A big flashy scene of oil derricks with sludgey brown all around the edges, like blood dripping down. A small town at sunrise all peaceful broken up by a plane flying high, leaving a huge contrail in the sky. A little girl in a bathing suit and a pink cowboy hat, sitting on a beach with waves crashing behind her, sporting a smile wide enough to show all her pretty teeth. That was the sad one, because Morgan and Janice had only ever had the one daughter, and she’d been killed at age sixteen in a car wreck a few years back. 

Jack turned around when he heard Ennis come up behind him. He was bare-headed, carrying his hat in one hand and a goblet of white wine in the other, and Jack hadn’t seen a sight like it in all his born days. If he blinked, he was afraid that he wouldn’t be seeing Ennis truly out in the world, next to him, aiming to keep his dignity and doing a damn fine job of it. And looking as good as any of the fancier-dressed men around them. Besides, Jack had spotted two other pairs of jeans already. 

He couldn’t keep his smile down. “Where’d you get that?” 

Ennis unwrapped one finger from around the glass and pointed without saying a word. A waitress in black and white with a tray was headed for Jack like a cutting horse intent on a heifer. In a heartbeat wine was pressed on him too, and she retreated like her mission in life was complete.

Behind her was another one who asked them, “Can I take your hats?” They gave them up, and the plastic bag too. Ennis’s eyes followed her as she left, as if he doubted he’d ever see his hat again.

Jack took a sip of wine. “Chardonnay,” he said.

“I know that,” Ennis growled. “It’s what Alma and Monroe had on holidays.”

“You like it?”

“It’s okay. Better than that champagne we had. You spotted our man yet?”

Jack jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “In there.”

“Well then, let’s get going, no sense just standing here.” 

Morgan’s eyes lit up when he saw Jack, but it took another five minutes of standing around and pretending to study paintings, Ennis next to him shifting from foot to foot, before the artist could get himself out of the conversation he was having with some high-heeled woman with a flowery shawl. By the time he did, they were each on their second Chardonnay.

He came toward them with an arm outstretched and a genuine smile on his ruddy face. “Jack! Good to see you!” He reached for Jack’s hand and pumped it, and then Morgan grabbed his shoulder with the other hand. Jack figured he meant it. He shoved his wine toward Ennis and found himself pulling Morgan closer, pounding his back with enthusiasm he hadn’t known he felt. 

Morgan was a link to the life he’d left behind in Childress, a life where he’d faked it for so many years that sometimes he’d even believed his own lies. He’d been the dutiful husband as much as he could, and that wasn’t ever enough, the father who’d tried and probably failed to help his son, and the employee who wasn’t wanted or respected in any way, shape, or form.

But it had been his life, much as he’d sometimes felt like he was an astronaut in a suit shut off from the rest of the world, breathing a whole different kind of air. He’d walked away from those seventeen years, looking forward and not back; it surprised him to be standing in an art gallery hugging Morgan and feeling a sudden rush of homesick longing. It made no sense. He blinked and pulled back, releasing Morgan’s broad shoulders. Morgan let go of him, too. 

“I was wondering if you’d join us tonight.”

“Here we are. Morgan, you remember my real good friend Ennis Del Mar.” 

“I sure do. Ennis, good to see you again.”

Jack took back his wine and watched the two of them shake hands. Morgan was all bluff welcome with no lie, as tall as Ennis but with a beer belly that strained the buttons on his sky blue sportcoat. His sandy lashes and blue eyes faded against his red face and hair. He was one of those few salt-of-the-earth men who said what he thought, meant what he said, and could be counted on no matter what. There weren’t many in Childress who Jack cared to continue a friendship with, and only Randall who he’d trusted with the truth about himself. But Morgan had been one of those who put two and two together and hadn’t let that change the honest friendship that he and Jack shared. 

The last and only meeting between Ennis and Morgan hadn’t gone off too well, but now Ennis stood square and met Morgan’s eyes with no backing off. That pleased Jack in ways that warmed his stomach. He’d left Childress not knowing what he’d been heading for, but Ennis was his new life, and Morgan a sign of his old, and there they were, shaking hands. 

“You sure got a good crowd tonight,” Ennis was saying, making conversation, and Jack relaxed. 

Morgan looked around and let go of their handshake. “I didn’t expect this. I guess the Four Elements has some regular clientele who must come for every opening.”

Jack punched his shoulder lightly. “What would Janice say if she heard you say that? You’ve got some great stuff here. You know I’ve always liked that sunrise painting.”

“I sold it not ten minutes ago,” Morgan said with a smile. 

“That’s great. So, where’s Janice?”

“She’ll be sorry she missed you. She’s gone off to get more wine for all the thirsty people. She should be back in twenty minutes or so.”

“Sorry, Morgan, we’re headed for dinner, so you tell Janice hi for me.” 

“I’ll do that. But since she isn’t here, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. You said on the phone that Ennis is training horses now.” His gaze moved over to where Ennis was standing silently. “Is that right?”

Ennis looked like he didn’t want to admit it, as if he was doing something criminal. But he finally spoke up. “Yeah, I’m doing that.”

“He’s only been at it a couple months, and already he’s sold both those horses,” Jack bragged, although he knew what Ennis thought about spreading his personal business around. “We’re out on the town tonight celebrating.”

“Really? Well, I won’t keep you. But I’ve been thinking I’d like to buy Janice a horse. As a surprise. I don’t know much about these things. I need somebody knowledgeable to act as my agent. Ennis, if you did that, you could train it too. And make sure it’s good for her, a lady’s horse, if you know what I mean.” 

Ennis looked off to the side, although Jack didn’t understand why he’d try to avoid what seemed like a good business opportunity to him. “What kind of rider is she?” Ennis finally asked.

“A beginner. But she learns fast, and I know she’d love to do this. What do you think?”

“This isn’t any place to be discussing business. Maybe we can talk later.”

To smooth over the moment, Jack said, “We just wanted to stop by and wish you luck. See your new stuff.”

Morgan turned around and surveyed the wall behind him. “Anything here in particular you like?” 

Jack didn’t have much of an eye for art, but he usually knew what struck him. “That Brahma bull looks like it’s ready to come right out of the painting.” 

“I finished that last week. It worked out okay.” Then, as if mindful of his manners, he asked, “Ennis, do you see anything you like?”

To Jack’s surprise, he nodded. “That one over there. The dark one.”

Jack had to step around a woman in a checkerboard white and black jacket to see, but when he did there was a painting of the prairie at night. Smaller than most of Morgan’s other work, it simply showed a far-off outline of a couple of cows standing on top of a rise, with a crescent moon hovering under some clouds. 

Morgan walked toward it, and Jack followed. “Really? Nobody else seems to like this little orphan painting. Janice hates it, says it makes her depressed. But I was going toward a certain feeling….”

The tag at the top of the frame said _Untitled #1. $1,500._ “What feeling was that?” Jack asked.

“Oh, don’t ever ask an artist that. If the work doesn’t speak for itself, then me saying anything isn’t worth much. It’s up to the observer to supply the answers.”

All three of them looked at the cows at night. Jack was curious and wanted to ask Ennis what it was that had struck him, but there were some things Jack Twist was fool enough to do and other things he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut about. When he’d come up with this idea of visiting the gallery together, he hadn’t thought they’d talk about art. That was one conversation they hadn’t had over the years.

“Well, it’s real nice,” Jack said, because he had nothing else to say. “We’d better get going now.” 

“Thanks for stopping by. If you’re in touch with Lureen, please tell her we said hello and she’s in our prayers. Oh, and Jack, about that commission.” 

Jack was already reaching for his hand to shake good-bye, but that stopped him. “What commission?”

“That we talked about, the picture of your partner here on a horse.” 

Jack threw Ennis a glance, checking for a volcano ready to go off. When this subject had first come up at the Fort Worth Stock Show, Ennis hadn’t been too pleased. Right now there was a frown line between his eyes, and a lifted brow that showed some surprise, too, but not all that much mad. 

“That’s something I’d really like to do, but I don’t know that I can afford you anymore. You’ve moved into the big time.”

Morgan cut through the air with a sweep of his hand. “I give discounts to old friends from Texas. Any time you’re ready, we can either arrange for a few sittings or you can supply me with some photographs, okay?” 

“Morgan,” Ennis put in, “this man’s talking through his hat. There won’t be any picture.” 

“Ah, come on, Ennis, we got the perfect spot for it in the back room—”

“Jack,” Ennis said firm, “stop talking like a fool. We have to let this man give his attention to paying customers.” 

“We’re not finished with this conversation.”

Ennis grunted. “Takes two to talk.”

They said good-bye to Morgan, retrieved their hats from a rack by the front door, and went out to the sidewalk, where the night was darker now. With the setting of the sun, the breeze was cooling things down, and the jacket Jack was wearing made some sense. He and Ennis paused in front of the gallery to let a woman with a big stroller go by. 

Ennis settled his hat. “Are you through now? Got any more hoops you want me to jump through?” 

Jack felt a pang of guilt that he put down. “Nope, that’s it.”

“Good. Cause it’s nine o’clock, and I’m beginning to think this offer of dinner wasn’t meant.”

“Hallelujah, are you saying you’re hungry?”

“I could eat.”

“Then I got the place for you.”

They took a few steps but then Jack remembered. “Oh, damn it, I forgot your stuff. Wait right here.” 

He dashed back inside the gallery, hoping that nobody had been curious enough to look inside the bag they’d left. They would have gotten a big surprise if they had. The innocent-looking bag, seemingly unmolested, was on the floor at the foot of the hat rack, and he bent over to grab it, relieved. But when he straightened, there was that young woman with the drinks, looking at him. 

“Uh, this is mine. I forgot it.” 

He didn’t give her a chance to say anything, he just left. Ennis had moved down to stand by the next storefront, away from the pool of light made by a street lamp. His head was down, as wasn’t unusual, and there was a sort of stillness to him, like he was thinking of important things. Jack came up to him without a word and they started east across town.

*****

The best way to the restaurant was cutting across Kit Carson Park, where there were ballfields for the kids and a good place to gather for stuff like craft shows and fairs. But there wasn’t anybody around with bats and balls this late at night, and as Jack led the way past the two columns at the park entrance, into the shadows thrown by the trees standing guard, the street noise of cars passing and people talking faded away. A hundred yards along the winding concrete path under the rustling branches and it was like they were in another world, with their only company the sound of their footsteps.

They hadn’t spoken since they’d left the gallery. Now he stole a look at his walking companion. Ennis’s silences meant all sorts of things, something he doubted Alma had ever figured out. But he’d found ways of understanding them, and he knew nobody else in the world could get the truth out of Ennis the way he could. 

But there wasn’t any need right now. The whole evening had been a special time, and these quiet moments walking through the dappled spots of shade and light under the trees even more so. Ennis looked over at him, and Jack knew he felt it too, like some part of them that lived not in this world was joined even though they were walking separately, side by side. 

They were only cutting across one corner of the park, but it was still plenty big enough to hide all sorts of secrets. A sweet, heavy smell drifted across the path to tickle Jack’s nose. He sniffed and gave a little chuckle.

“You miss it?” Ennis asked quietly, his voice coming from the shadows. 

“You mean smoking dope?”

“You sometimes brought it with you, those weeks. It’s been more than a year since then.”

“There isn’t much I miss about those days. I wouldn’t mind having a joint now and then, yeah, but I don’t have much need for it, if that’s what you’re asking. How about you?”

“I only ever did that for you, you know.” 

“Yeah, I knew that.” 

“So, how come we ain’t doing it now?”

Jack scratched the side of his neck. He’d had some stray thoughts on the subject himself. “You notice,” he pointed out, “we aren’t drinking whiskey much these days either.” 

“Beer’s good.” 

“And we’re coming up on our fortieth birthdays.”

“First time we’ll be together for those, too.” 

“I think the drinking and the dope smoking, that was because of the way things were then, being separate.” 

“Got other things on our minds now.” 

“Some of that. But there are some things that’ll always be on my mind,” Jack said, “no matter what.” 

Ennis was staring straight ahead. “Yeah. Me, too.” 

The trees fell away as the path led to the edge of a soccer field, and the openness silenced them both. A man and a woman were coming toward them, pressed together with their arms wrapped around each other’s waists, and as they walked closer, Jack saw how young they were. Teenagers, with eyes only for each other. He remembered how Lureen had felt snuggled up against him in those early days, before she’d got pregnant, before he’d tied himself to Childress. Women had this way of pressing to your side, one purpose for those hips, he guessed. Made a man feel strong. 

The couple came up to them but the path wasn’t wide enough to let them pass. Ennis dropped behind. “Hi,” the girl said, and her eyes were shining, liquid. The boy nodded. Jack touched his hat and then they were gone. The sound of their footsteps changed, from walking on concrete to stepping on grass, and Jack imagined they were headed for privacy on the other side of the field. The last sound from them he heard was the girl’s giggle. 

Ennis came back to walk next to him then, and twenty steps later they were back under the warm darkness of low oaks, their branches reaching down as if to touch them. 

“You willing to share one of those cigarettes?” Ennis’s voice sounded loud in the silence. 

Jack stopped under the trees, fished out the pack, shook it and held it out so Ennis could take one. A snap of a match and Ennis was leaning close, drawing in air until the tip flamed bright. 

He pulled back, blew out smoke and said, “Gotta ask you something.” 

“Okay.”

“What do you think of what Morgan said? That bit about partner.”

It was the second time Jack had heard the term used for Ennis and him. The first time had been when Gary’d said it, and he’d been mainly trying to get Ennis’s goat at the time. 

“I expect you don’t care for it,” Jack said. 

“I’m not saying that.” In the dark it was hard to see, but Jack heard thoughtfulness in that voice. “I want to know what you think.”

“I know you don’t take kindly to saying boyfriend.”

“You’ve got that right.” 

The cigarette flared as Ennis drew in again. Jack wished he’d lit one for himself while he was at it. “I guess it’s okay.”

“I thought we had a no lying thing going.”

“If you know what I’m going to say before I say it, why are you asking me?”

“You like it. I saw your face when Morgan said it.”

“Then there you are. I like it. We need a word for what we are, Ennis.”

“I think I’m me and you’re you. Why do we need a word for other people to use? I don’t want other people to be talking about us at all.”

Jack made a sound to show his impatience. “What, you want to hide out at the house and never meet anybody? It can’t be done. We’ll meet people, they’ll draw conclusions….” Jack’s shoulders rose and fell. “I’d just as soon the conclusions they draw be the right ones.” 

“So you want folks to know we’re—”

Jack cut in. “I don’t want them to know anything in particular. With the way Corliss is at the feedlot, I’m not going out of my way…. I’m talking about if people do know us, the way Morgan already knows me.” 

“Nobody knows me that good around here. Nobody knows me good enough anywhere to know about you at all, and I aim to keep it that way.”

Jack slapped the damn plastic bag that he’d been lugging all over Taos against his leg. He could walk this line with Ennis if he had to, if Ennis insisted it was the only choice, but he doubted the world would leave them alone permanently. Something would change, and when it did, he didn’t want Ennis to be unprepared. “I don’t know that you can do that year after year.” 

“Huh. I figure I can. I’m not like you, opening my trap all the time. I don’t want anybody to look at us and think anything. Not conclude anything. Not even that word. Partners.”

“It’s better than people thinking we’re two shitheads.”

“Yeah, but in your case they’d be right.” Ennis dropped the smoke to the ground and ground it out under his boot heel. “Is this restaurant near here or on the moon, Twist?” 

Jack let out a bark of laughter. “You are such a dumbass, Ennis. I don’t know why I ever took up with you.” 

“Must be cause I make sense and you don’t. Come on now, I’m thinking of food.”

The restaurant was one street over from the park boundary, and it took them less than five minutes to walk the rest of the way. Jack glanced over at Ennis every now and then and chuckled. He had no idea what the answer to that question was, why he’d been so struck up on Brokeback when it came to Ennis Del Mar. There wasn’t any one reason, he supposed as he swung open the door to the Ranch Steak House. Maybe it was more knowing a feeling of comfort, of being home. He’d only ever felt that with Ennis: never in any house he’d ever lived in except the one right here in Colfax county, that he was sharing with his stubborn fellow. A man would go a far way, all the way up to Wyoming from Texas, over and over again despite the draining hope, to touch that feeling of coming home. 

They were seated in a nice booth right away, as the place wasn’t too crowded for a Friday night, although Andy had said it was his and Carolyn’s favorite place in Taos. Ennis took the seat facing away from the rest of the room, and Jack pretended he didn’t notice or care that this was what Ennis always did. Jack knew that eating out was always a challenge for Ennis; he needed time to even start feeling comfortable under the eyes of waiters and waitresses and all the other people eating.

Plus eating out was like heresy in the religion of careful living to Ennis, throwing your money away. Ennis had always been forced to watch the dollars. The pennies. First as a kid with dirt poor parents, like Jack, then as a young husband and father with responsibilities he’d felt keenly, and then as a ramshackle ranch hand barely making a living wage. Even then, Ennis paid his child support each month as a point of pride, one of the only things in his life he could point to with any satisfaction. That payment was paid with love, unspoken. Jack hoped those girls he’d never met, who’d played such a big role in his own life, knew their daddy loved them. 

Ennis sat with his glasses slid way down on his nose, checking out the menu. As Jack could have predicted, he said, “Fancy ass establishment you’ve taken us to. Fifteen dollars for a steak, you gotta be kidding.”

“I’m having the lobster,” Jack said. “And you’re getting the prime rib.” 

Ennis pulled his chin in and regarded him over the glasses. “Oh, yeah? Since when?” 

“Since this is me paying.” 

“You keep eating seafood, you’re gonna grow fins.” 

“I’m making up for all the trout we didn’t catch. Listen, how about we get a bottle of wine?”

The look that came over Ennis’s face and just as quickly disappeared held some pleasure to it. “For celebrating?” 

“That’s right. Something different so we can remember. More of that Chardonnay okay for you?”

Ennis seemed doubtful. “I’m not expert on such things, but I do know you get red wine for beef, right?” 

“Ah, what the hell, we should get what we want.”

“Then, yeah, let’s get more of that.” 

The waiter came to take their order, and Jack wasn’t surprised when Ennis wanted the T-bone instead of the prime rib. He’d been mainly trying to make sure something was put in that mouth, chewed and swallowed. He had no ambitions to be walking around with a skeleton.

“So,” Jack said, sitting back and relaxing once the waiter let them be, “did you call Junior on Thursday?” 

Ennis looked comfortable. “Uh-huh. She’s doing good, getting ready to move to Sheridan for her cooking school in late August. She had a fight with her boss at the DQ, but she ain’t fired.”

“And what about this Kurt she’s dating?”

“Was dating. He’s roughnecking now, so she ain’t seen him the last month.” 

“Probably why she had the fight, because she’s missing him.”

“I dunno. I told her how you took the plane to the cattle convention, and she told me she hoped you had a good trip. I think she was worried about you. Junior has this fear of flying, you see.” 

“I did too, before I gave it a try. But I doubt it was me Junior was worried about.”

“I wasn’t the one putting myself in Delta’s hands.”

“Junior gets it, Ennis. She knows if I go down in flames you’d take it hard.” 

Ennis looked to the side, and Jack saw him swallow. “You’re asking for trouble when you say stuff like that.” 

“What, you think I’ll get zapped by some thunderbolt because I’m not superstitious? Nothing’s going to happen to me,” Jack scoffed. “And not you either. Listen, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about something.” 

Ennis turned back to him. “Go ahead.”

“We never did have that money discussion we said we’d have when we were back in Texas. I think it’s about time we set up a joint account, don’t you?” 

If he’d grown a pair of antlers, Ennis couldn’t have looked at him as if he were more strange. “What’s wrong with how we’ve been doing it?”

Jack shrugged. “Nothing wrong exactly, but—”

“You write a check for half the rent, I do the same, and then half and half on all the rest of the bills.” 

“Oh, yeah, sure, like we’re college roommates. Or two guys who don’t know each other, doubling up to spare the expenses now that we’re both divorced.” 

Ennis planted both elbows on the table and leaned over. “I get it. You’re wanting us to play house. Pretend like we’ve got the world’s nod when we ain’t never gonna have that.” 

“There’s no pretending about it. We are living in the same house, and as far as I’m concerned, permanently.” 

“Me, too, but I don’t need to go to some bank and put my name on a checking account with yours.” 

“Can’t we ever have dinner out without arguing?”

“I’m not arguing, I’m telling you how things are gonna be. I earn my money, and I don’t have any reason to be using yours.”

Jack ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “I know that. Don’t get your back up because you think I want to give you charity. You’re making a good wage, and it’ll only get better as your business gets off the ground.” 

“So what’s the point? What’re you aiming at?”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t have separate accounts too. I just thought that one joint account, for the stuff we’re responsible for together, it would be….” He ran out of words for what he was trying to say, maybe because he wasn’t quite sure himself. But this subject had been on his mind for a while. 

But Ennis found some words. “It’d be all girly, make nice, the two of us like some man and woman setting up house together. I’m not in this to pretend I’m married, Jack. I already went down that road. It leads nowhere.” 

“So in your mind we’re on a different road?”

“Damn right,” Ennis said, low-voiced. The whole talk had been taking place that way, so nobody could overhear as they faced off across the table. 

“Well, it might be a different road to you, but to me this is the way things should be. It’s what I would have had with Lureen if…if I’d been different. I don’t see the nowhere part.” 

“I didn’t say we were going nowhere, I said….” Abruptly, Ennis sat back. “Are we talking about money or something else?” 

“You know what they say about the first year of marriage and money troubles.”

“No, what do they say?”

“That more marriages break up in the first year because of disagreements over money than anything else.” 

“We ain’t married, we ain’t gonna go our separate ways, and there is no problem with money.” 

“Well, now that I’ve heard the gospel according to Ennis, I—”

There was that gleam in the brown eyes. “At least we ain’t arguing over religion.” 

“You wait, I’ll take you to the Baptist Church with Andy.” 

“That’ll be the day. I had enough of that with Alma.” Ennis hitched forward again, and his words were serious. “Jack, I mean that. I don’t want to do again what happened with her, not in any way.” 

“And the way I see it, there isn’t much difference between how we’re living now and the way two people should live in marriage under the law. And God, if you’re inclined to bring him into this.” 

“I ain’t never pretended to know the way God thinks.” 

“Me, neither, I just think that….” Jack shook his head. It would do him no good to push this. He didn’t want to fight on this night, that had been more than fine from the moment Ennis had come into view. And since he was looking forward to the conclusion of this night too, he backed down. “Oh, hell. I don’t know that it matters if we see this different. It’s worked all right so far, right?”

There was that lopsided lift of Ennis’s mouth again. “I ain’t complaining. But I’ve got no mind to be putting my money anywhere but my own hands.” 

Jack’d had no grounds to think Ennis would agree with him on this. But for some reason it bothered him that they kept all their money separate. His dreams of living with Ennis hadn’t ever gotten specific, but it seemed right and proper to him that they combine their lives in some real way beyond how they felt in their hearts. Even though Ennis wasn’t inclined to open his heart too often, Jack knew what was there. 

He looked across the table. Compared to how they’d started out in Texas, with Gary standing between them, with Ennis conscious of every open ear in a Denny’s restaurant, with Jack’s past in Childress coming back to hurt them when they stopped on the road… it was past believing that things had changed this much. That they were talking like this at all on a Friday night in town was more than Jack had ever expected would come to be, and he told himself that he needed to be grateful for what he had and stop wanting more. If he pushed Ennis too far…. 

That wasn’t possible, was it? Wasn’t Ennis in this for good, the way he was? Jack had promised him he wouldn’t ever leave again, but he was conscious that Ennis hadn’t said the same in return.

Jack looked down at his napkin. Despite all, despite knowing that Ennis spoke better with actions than with words, despite knowing all that had been said over the last months, it still seemed true that he could use some reassurance in that area. 

“Hey, bud.” Jack raised his eyes. Ennis’s face was open, amused. “If you need a loan, I could spare you the cash.”

Jack couldn’t help it, he laughed. “You dumbass, you know this isn’t about that.” 

“Good, then. I’d hate to think you were headed for the poor house and I’d have to support your sorry ass.”

The waiter came back then with a bottle of wine that he opened in front of them. Jack watched Ennis watching the whole process while trying to look like he wasn’t, and feeling came up in him that made his chest get tight. He didn’t try to understand it, just sat there and felt. 

Ennis made fun of him through the whole dinner as he struggled with getting the meat from the lobster, and Jack coped with squirting lobster juice. The wine went down with no problem for both of them, and Jack felt free and easy as a consequence. He didn’t care; this was one fine evening, and there was a part of him that didn’t want it to end. Although another part did. 

Eventually Ennis managed to cut every scrap of meat from the T-bone that had been set in front of him, they’d turned the wine bottle upside down and shook it to make sure they’d got the last drop, and Jack made a big deal out of handing the waiter his credit card. 

“And that’s another thing,” he said out of the blue as they walked out through the lobby. “You need to get a credit card. I can’t imagine a grown man without a credit card these days. It’s 1984, you know.” 

Ennis ignored him, opening up the door and letting it swing back in his face. Jack laughed. Nothing could ruin his mood.

It was eleven o’clock now, and this far from the plaza there weren’t many people out for a stroll. They walked half a block with Jack feeling fine, because of all sorts of things mixed up inside with the wine. Like Ennis tucking in his shirt three separate times this evening, and how Jack always wanted to run his fingertips along the small of his back when he did that, remembering how Ennis stretched like a cat. Like realizing they hadn’t touched once since their handshake, and yet this evening… yeah, it had been real good, finally coming close to satisfying that extra thing he’d been needing, which was just Ennis, after all. Like knowing that soon they’d be touching a lot more than hands. 

“You’re home to stay for a good while now, right?” Ennis said as they passed a hardware store.

“I’ve got no other trips planned at the moment.” 

“And when one comes up, only gonna be overnight now and then?”

“I think so. Me gone five days too long for you?” 

“Just making sure you’re gonna be around.”

“I missed you, too, Ennis, even with all of Kansas City to distract me.” 

“Like hell, Twist. We’re headed back to that Adobe bar now.”

“What, you want another drink?”

“Nope.”

“What, then?”

“My truck’s parked down the street from the Adobe at that municipal parking lot.”

Jack grinned, getting the drift of the conversation. “Mine, too. So, how about we walk right past the bar?”

“Uh-huh. All the way to your truck.”

“And then what?”

They stopped at an intersection and waited while traffic passed in front of them. “You drive on home.” 

“And what about you?”

“I’ll be right behind you.”

“And then what?”

“Twist, if I gotta explain that one in words, we got problems.” 

“Sounds like you’re getting impatient.”

Ennis exhaled loud and sharp. “I been fucking patient for the last five hours, and I’ve had enough. I reckon we can get back home about midnight.” 

For some reason that struck Jack as funny. He giggled, knowing he sounded like a boy twenty-five years younger than he was and not at the moment caring. Chardonnay and Buddha margaritas would do that to a man just as well as rotgut whiskey. “Midnight, like Cinderella.” 

“I sure as hell will be taking off those fancy shoes you’re wearing,” Ennis growled. 

Ennis always did get a touch insistent when he’d had more than four or five beers. Jack had the vague feeling Ennis had got the story wrong, that the shoes went on and not off, but he didn’t say anything because the thought of Ennis tearing off his shoes and his socks and everything else was appealing. 

The light turned green, and Ennis stepped down from the curb. “Come on, let’s get going, I need to be up early in the morning.” 

Even hearing Ennis refer to his horses wasn’t enough to spoil what had been about a perfect Friday night, so far as Jack was concerned. He turned his face up to the sky and felt like whistling. They were still finding their way, neither of them being exactly sure of the road, but they were walking together. And right at that moment, Jack couldn’t ask for more.

*****

 

Where the hell was Ennis?

Jack looked at the clock in the kitchen, the one they’d put up over the refrigerator, and it said only five minutes had passed since he’d looked at it last. Twelve forty-five. He kicked the leg of the kitchen chair as he stalked by, walking nowhere in particular because he had nowhere to go.

He’d made it home before Ennis at eleven fifty-four. He had laughed a little because he’d won that race, and before midnight, too. The mountain driving between Taos and Eagle Nest made for a test even in broad daylight, when a man wasn’t already a little tired out from traveling half across the country. He’d been satisfied with himself, the way he’d handled the curves of the road at night. He’d always been able to drive fine with a little buzz on, as it seemed to make for sharper reflexes, he’d thought. 

When it was twelve ten, he’d figured that Ennis had stopped off for some gas. There was a Texaco station down in Eagle Nest at the intersection of highways 64 and 38, south of them in town, that stayed open late. 

When it was twelve twenty-five, he’d guessed that maybe there’d been some delay at the pump, everybody deciding to fill up at the same time. He’d opened the refrigerator and seen not too much there, so by twelve thirty he thought that maybe Ennis had looked ahead to the weekend and keeping themselves fed. Ennis had probably decided to make a quick stop at the Allsup’s convenience store attached to the station to get beer and eggs, maybe some other stuff. 

But it was twelve forty-five now, and damned if Ennis must be getting back at him for what he’d said at the parking lot. Fuck. Jack walked through the length of the house to the back TV room and threw himself into the crappy brown chair that was Ennis’s main contribution to their furniture. 

_Ennis said that his pick-up was at the far end of the municipal lot down from the Adobe, where he must have pulled into one of the last spots open on a Friday night. Jack was parked a lot closer to the street; they got to his truck first. He closed the door, started the engine, and rolled down the window with a touch of his finger. The electric motor whined as the glass disappeared._

_His fellow from Wyoming rested his folded arms on the open window and leaned in close, his eyes shining in the bright overhead lights that kept tourists safe from crime._

_“It’s a shame I can’t give you a taste right now of what you’ll be getting from me once we get home,” Ennis said, his voice pitched deep._

_Jack focused on those sweet lips that were begging for more than just talking, and a shiver ran across his shoulders. Damn if he didn’t want to grab Ennis and throw him across the bench seat or let Ennis do the same to him, but they weren’t ever going to repeat the kiss in public that had gotten Jack in trouble back in Amarillo. Instead, he reached out and flicked his thumb against the side of Ennis’s face. “Pretty soon.”_

_“Prick tease,” Ennis said fondly, like it was a compliment. “You really been making me wait for it tonight.”_

_“There’s two of us in this, friend.”_

_“I’ll have to see how you like it someday, make you wait for hours when we could be going at it.”_

_Jack grinned at him and without looking away put the truck in gear. “That won’t ever happen.”_

_“Oh, yeah?”_

_“Yeah. You can’t resist me, Del Mar, admit it.”_

_Ennis stepped back with one of his lopsided smiles. “We’ll have to find that out, won’t we?”_

_Jack hit the accelerator and roared out of there, watching in the rearview mirror as Ennis scrambled for his truck._

That had to be it. That’s why Ennis was late. Jack checked his watch. It was fucking going on twelve fifty.

He could have sworn that Ennis was as eager to get at it as he was. That he’d felt their separation keenly, like Jack truly had. What else could Ennis have meant, saying he’d been through with being patient?

Jack frowned and stared at the television that he’d turned on without the sound. ABC was showing some wrestlers faking it in the ring. 

“Come on, you shithead, I’m tired,” he said out loud. “You have made your goddamned point!”

He dropped his head back against the cushion and closed his eyes. Suddenly, he was all worn-out. If things had gone the way they should have, they’d be all fucked out by now and snoring in their bed. Him wrapped around Ennis or Ennis wrapped around him, it didn’t matter. Hell, he’d been so hot when he roared up their driveway, his dick had been ready for immediate action. He’d even considered starting early, greeting Ennis by sitting in a kitchen chair, pulled up right in front of the side door, Jack’s legs spread and his dick in his hand….

He wasn’t hot now. Not at all. Just tired, and pissed off, and with the first stirring of doubt coming into his mind like a sneak thief. 

Him and Ennis, they’d played their share of jokes on each other, but they were little jokes, things that didn’t mean much. Never ones designed to make the other one worry. Ennis had a good sense of humor, but it wasn’t aimed at something like this.

_Where the hell was he?_

Ennis wasn’t that mean.

Abruptly Jack heaved himself from the chair. What was that he’d heard? For no reason, his heart pounded as he listened. Just his imagination?

He walked up the step from the back room to the laundry room and then to the kitchen, in this house that wasn’t arranged the way a person expected it to be. He went to the small window over the sink that looked out onto the side yard and pushed the curtains aside. They had good light for both front and side yards that came on automatically at night, and now the purplish glow showed him the gravel of the driveway and the dark spread of grass. The trees of their personal forest, where they’d made love last Sunday, looked on. He saw his truck. Not Ennis’s truck. Not Ennis. Nothing was stirring, and he stayed at that window looking for a good minute to make sure.

Defeated, Jack pulled back, but he didn’t know what else to do. He glanced at the telephone with some half-formed idea of calling somebody, but there was nobody to call. There was nobody he could think of that Ennis might be with instead of here with him. Ennis had kept himself to himself. He talked sometimes of the Buckminster family, but there probably wasn’t another soul in this valley who even knew his name. 

Jack frowned. That wasn’t right. That wasn’t living. Regardless of Ennis’s fears, he was going to have to make sure they didn’t live like hermits, with nobody to turn to in case….

He wouldn’t let himself finish that thought but instead headed for the side door, pulled it open with a jerk, and went out into the grass-scented air. The dark bulk of the Sangre de Cristo mountains ranged to the west and east. The waning moon, a few days past full, was a dim glow behind the clouds that filled up most of the sky. There wasn’t much rain there, Jack judged, looking up with his hands on his hips, and there’d been no sign of rain slicking up the roads on his drive home. Ennis was a careful driver. And he hadn’t been drunk. Not exactly. They’d had enough to make them feel fine, that was all.

Which didn’t mean anybody Ennis met on the road might not have been skunked out of his mind, swerving all over the place, going over the yellow line into oncoming traffic, a screech of brakes….

Jack’s hand was on the handle of his truck before he remembered he’d put the keys in the little bowl on the kitchen counter. Besides, what did he think he’d accomplish? Ennis would drive up while he was gone, he’d be fucking mad because Jack wasn’t there waiting, and then they’d fight. He just needed to sit tight and wait. 

Jack told himself that for the next five minutes while he prowled around the outside of the house, then for the next ten minutes while he went down to the little stable to check that all was well there, and for five minutes after that while he made sure the back field gate was shut. He gained knowledge that all was well on their property, but there wasn’t any Ennis. 

It had to be his old truck, Jack decided as he trudged back to the house. The engine had finally died. Maybe the transmission had gone out, or one of the hoses had given up the ghost, something like that. Probably Ennis was cursing Jack right now for not figuring out what had happened, for not realizing that he could use a helping hand out in the dark along the narrow, winding road with the Carson National Forest all around. 

Two minutes later Jack was in his F-150, barreling down the driveway. He kept sweeping his eyes to both sides of the road, thinking maybe Ennis had broken down close to their place. But there was nothing stirring along County Road 19; he didn’t pass another set of headlights until he turned onto Highway 38, and then it was only the one truck. 

He stole a glance at his watch. One twenty-seven…. Ranch people turned in at decent hours even on the weekend. They were all in bed, the way he and Ennis should be. 

The drive through the sleeping village of Eagle Nest he took slowly, making sure he didn’t miss anything, for it could be that Ennis had pulled in at the first sign of trouble next to the chamber of commerce office, or the bait shop, or the Town and Country realtors, where they’d gone when they were looking for a place to live. Ennis hadn’t been able to avoid being known by Lucy, the realtor who’d shown them the house. She at least was one person in town who’d remember his name. She’d seemed ready to ask them questions about why two men were signing the lease, but in the end she hadn’t opened her mouth about it.

The moon broke through the clouds as he came to the gas station at the intersection. Eagle Nest Lake glittered with sparks of light; he hardly glanced at it but wrenched the steering wheel to turn right around the big curve that skirted the water. The truck skidded and then grabbed hold of the road, but the few seconds of being out-of-control brought his heart into his throat. It wouldn’t do them any good if he woke up in a hospital.

The long stretch south down the valley, more than twelve miles, gave good views to each side, but there wasn’t any truck broken down, and there wasn’t any crowd around a wreck, and there wasn’t any Ennis walking dejectedly along the shoulder. If he went much farther, he’d be into the mountain turns, back and forth, and committed to going all the way back to Taos. 

He argued with himself, cursed more than a few times, and then finally decided that Ennis would be madder than a fire was hot when he got home and discovered Jack had been driving all over the county looking for him. There was some explanation for this, and Ennis would tell him what it was, and even now maybe their phone was ringing with nobody there to pick it up. Even if something was going on, Ennis was a grown man and could handle it fine, the way Jack had been fine when there’d been the fire on Prospect Drive.

“Shit. Goddamn it. Fuck.” Jack pulled over onto the narrow shoulder, checked that there was no sign of headlights approaching, turned, and headed home.

Twenty minutes later he turned into their long driveway, feeling stupid, knowing for sure that Ennis’s truck would be parked by the side door and that Ennis himself would be fine, probably fallen asleep inside already waiting…. But the house was as he’d left it. No truck and no Ennis. Jack yanked open the door and stomped into the kitchen to stare at the phone. They needed to get an answering machine. Ennis would complain about it, would get worried about whose voice was leaving the message, but damn it, if they had one already, he’d know if there’d been a call while he was gone. 

Jesus. It was bad enough that he’d gone through worrying about Bobby as a teenager, now Ennis was putting him through this. 

He didn’t look at the clock on the wall ticking away the seconds, because the watch on his wrist was an old friend. Two o’clock in the morning. Ennis was two hours later than he should be, and Jack was way past pretending dread wasn’t coursing through his body. Him and Ennis, they’d just got together. Spent twenty years of misery and now only months of living the way they should’ve been together from the day they came down off Brokeback Mountain…. God wasn’t that cruel, was he? To do something that would kill Jack, if something was seriously wrong with Ennis…. 

He could hear Lureen’s voice in his head, saying _Jack, would you calm down? I swear, you’re worse than an old woman. Bobby’ll be fine._

It was a fucking flat tire, for sure. He needed to take deep breaths and be patient. Jack walked into the back room where the TV had been going the whole time he was gone. Some black and white movie with Bette Davis was on now. He grabbed the remote and sat down, this time on the couch under the old air conditioner, turned the sound on, and sat back to watch. The movie would take his mind off his worry. 

Thirty seconds later he turned the sound off, to make sure he could hear it when the truck pulled up.

At two twenty-seven, he thought he heard…. He jumped up and tried not to breathe.

The next second he was tearing through the house and out the side door. Coming down the gravel road was the pick-up, past the big lone Ponderosa, up to the front door where it slowed as if the driver didn’t know whether the front door was the one to stop by….

Jack’s heart sank into the pit of his stomach. He put his hand over his eyes and squinted against the glare of the headlights. That wasn’t Ennis’s old truck. It was a dark-colored Silverado, extended cab, not a truck he’d ever seen before. Somebody had come to tell him….

And then, as if he’d been spotted standing out there, the Silverado started again and swerved to come to the side of the house. It stopped thirty feet from Jack Twist.

The passenger door opened the instant the wheels were still, and a familiar, lanky form unfolded from the seat. Jack felt like the whole world had spun out of control, but in that moment it came back to where it needed to be. He drew in a breath that finally seemed to go down into his lungs. 

Ennis leaned back into the cab to say something that Jack couldn’t hear. The driver was a dark-haired man, thin-faced, unfamiliar, but then just about everybody who lived around there wasn’t familiar to Jack. The man said something in return to Ennis, who backed away and slammed the door shut, more like he was mad instead of grateful for the lift. Through the clear glass of the windshield, Jack saw the man put his hands on the steering wheel and look straight forward, into his own eyes. 

Jack lifted one hand in thanks; whoever this guy was, he’d brought Ennis back home, and they had reason to be grateful at least for that. The guy nodded to him, then put the Silverado into reverse and turned it around. Thirty seconds later he was halfway down their driveway. 

Jack wanted to go over and grab Ennis, give him a big hug, but it didn’t seem like that would be a wise thing to do. Ennis lifted his head and stared at Jack across the space that separated them, not saying a word. He looked like he was ready to explode, that if one more feather dropped from heaven onto his shoulders, he’d have way more than a full load to bear. 

Jack stood there, waiting, and after a few heartbeats Ennis found his way over. Jack kept his hands to himself. 

“You okay?” 

Ennis nodded, but there were dark stains on the knees of his good jeans and another smear higher up. A streak on the sleeve of his shirt too. 

“Where’s your truck?” 

Ennis jerked his head in the general direction of town. “Got pushed to the Texaco.” 

He stomped over to the door and went through it into the house, letting the screen swing shut with a bang. Jack stood still and frowned, and then he followed him inside. Ennis was washing his hands at the sink. 

“What happened?” 

Ennis grabbed the towel from the door of the refrigerator and dried off. “What happened?” he growled, glancing over at Jack with hard eyes, accusing him of everything under the sun and then some. “That’s what I want to know. I can’t believe you did that.”

“Me? What’d I do?”

“Stood out there like a fool in the drive, where anybody could see you.”

“What? What’d you expect? I’ve been waiting for you these past two and a half hours! I heard the truck drive up, so—”

“Wasn’t my truck now, was it? I thought you’d be smart enough to figure things out and stay inside where you belong. Jesus, Jack!”

Jack worked to keep his temper down. Exploding wouldn’t do any good. “Stay inside? Hiding from whoever the hell it was who gave you a lift? That’s not how I live.”

“Yeah, well, I want to live, I want to keep my job, and,” Ennis’s voice got even louder, “I don’t want to be throwing my living arrangements in anybody’s face!” Ennis yanked open the refrigerator and grabbed one of the two cans of beer that were on the top shelf. He popped it open and took a long swallow. 

“Keep your job? What are you talking about?” 

“That was Rocky who gave me a lift home, after he dropped the family off at his place. As in Buckminster. Get it? You asshole.” 

Shit. Jack ran his hand through his hair. “Look, tell me what happened, would you? What’s that you got on your….” He took two steps closer. “That looks like blood stains. I thought you said you were okay.” 

Ennis glanced down at his arm and then held it closer like he hadn’t noticed the mark on the white fabric before. “Damn it! Fuck!” He banged the beer down on the counter and started unbuttoning the shirt like it burned. In seconds he had it off and was stomping back to the sink to stick it under the flow of cold water. 

Under the kitchen lights that seemed brighter than they should be, like lights in a jail, Jack could see Ennis’s ribs under his pale skin and a bruise coming up across his arm below the elbow. But there wasn’t any sign of a cut that would account for the blood.

He stepped up close behind Ennis’s bare back, though he knew better than to touch. “Tell me what happened,” he said, as reasonably as he could. 

With the water running and Ennis scrubbing with the bar of soap, he didn’t catch but a mumbled word or two. “…hit a….”

“What’d you say?”

“Said I hit a deer.” 

“And it bled on you? How’d you get close enough to—”

“Use your head, jackass. I was trying to straighten out the frame of the truck so the tires would move free, and some of the blood from where I hit the buck got off on my clothes.” 

“How’d you end up with Rocky?”

Ennis was taking out some of his mad on the spot, rubbing so hard it seemed he would push a hole in the cloth any second. “They came along after a while, four of them coming back from someplace they were visiting.” 

“And they stopped to help you. Okay. That was nice of them.” 

“Nice?” Ennis whirled around, soap in his hand, close enough to Jack that they were damn near nose to nose. “Oh, yeah, they were nice. BJ was so fucking nice I wanted to kill her. Dumb ranch hand driving a fucking old truck, too drunk to get out of the way of a buck.”

“You’re not drunk.”

“Oh, yeah? Took one look at her and knew that’s what she thought. She talked to me like I was an idiot.” 

“You’re exaggerating the—”

“Like hell! Who was there, Jack, you or me? And then you had to stand out in the middle of the yard like a billboard, announcing to Rocky and the whole world that—”

“Shit, Ennis, I was waiting for fucking forever. You didn’t call, you didn’t—”

“Call?” Ennis raged, choking on the word. “I’m supposed to be living on my own, with nobody who gives a damn about me! I knew you’d be here like some woman wondering where I’d got to, imaging the worst, cause that’s how you are. But I couldn’t stop and let you know I was okay, cause I couldn’t let them know you were here caring about me!”

Jack took a chance and put his hand on Ennis’s arm, but he was shrugged off. Ennis spun back to his shirt, turned on the water with a vicious twist of his wrist, and held the shirt under to rinse it. 

“You and your fucking caring! You’ve probably cared me right out of a job. First man to give me a chance, a real good job, them trusting me. I know I can help make that operation grow. But then Jack Fucking Twist and his almighty caring comes charging outside and stands there at two o’clock in the morning, looking like Rocky’s delivered gold. What’s Rocky supposed to think, huh?”

“Ennis, he probably didn’t—”

“I saw him! He put two and two together. Your truck right there, and some man standing out—”

He’d had enough. He grabbed Ennis’s shoulder and spun him around. 

“I’m not just some man!” Jack yelled in his face.

“The hell you ain’t!” Ennis shouted back at him. He balled up the dripping shirt and threw it across the room. “There ain’t no word for us. We’re just two guys who fuck! Not your fancy partners or boyfriends, we’re just queers!”

“I’m not ashamed of that, but I’m not just some guy to you, and you’re not just some guy to me! I’m not ashamed of how I feel for you! Who gives a damn what name anybody uses?”

“You care! Trying to say it’s like we’re married. Shit, it’s nothing like that. Just two guys who fuck, Jack!” 

“If that’s so, then why didn’t I stay in Childress with Randall?” 

“Cause you’re dumber than dirt.” 

“Why didn’t you go off with Roberto?” Ennis didn’t answer, only looked at him like one more word on that subject would get his head knocked off. But Jack wasn’t having any of that caution. “Because you didn’t want to have sex with just any guy, just like I didn’t want to have sex with Gary once you showed up. We’re not just some man to each other!” 

“There ain’t even a name for what we’re trying to do. We ain’t natural, not a part of the real world.”

“You think that way if you want to, but I—”

It was like Ennis choked. “I can’t think like I want to!” He charged past Jack to the side door and set the lock the way they did every night. For the time it took Jack to blink, Ennis sagged against the frame. Jack took a step closer, hardly believing he’d seen defeat in his iron man, but then Ennis was up again, his shoulders so tight Jack could see the muscles straining. “Do you know why I hit that buck? Huh?”

“What? I guess it….”

Ennis turned slowly, not meeting Jack’s eyes. His jaw was set like stone. “Cause I’m so fucking queer that I wasn’t paying attention. Jesus, how many times have I driven at night and never hit anything? I was thinking of you, the guy I was hard for, who I’m always hard for, and what we were gonna do.” 

“That’s nothing to be—”

Worse than Ennis yelling, worse by a long shot, was Ennis shaking his head and talking quietly. “That’s the way I was in Wyoming. I never had you out of my mind. Thought that being with you all the time would change that, and I’d get to living like a normal person. How am I supposed to live, Jack, when you’ve got me trapped like this, huh? This ain’t natural, having you all the time in my thoughts.”

Jack swallowed. In the middle of their hard words, Ennis was showing him things Jack hadn’t even guessed he was thinking. “Nobody knew that. They couldn’t know what you were feeling, and I—”

“They don’t need to know, because Rocky’s seen you’re here in my house, on Saturday morning, and there goes my job.”

“Stop being such a pessimist, it won’t be like—”

Ennis jerked his head up. “Guess you should be the one taking those SATs.”

“What?” 

“I’m not dumb, I know I’m not, only I never had any schooling and got no chances. But you’re the same, and look at you! Fancy words, always knowing how to get along with folks, even at that art gallery with Morgan.” 

“You did fine there. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

“Oh, yeah, you know cause you were looking, weren’t you? Seeing if I was gonna pass your test. Did I? Huh?” Two quick steps brought Ennis closer, with his fists clenched at his sides. “Did I?” 

Guilt flashed through Jack again. That was too close to the truth, although it was a complicated truth that only had him thinking of their future, but why had he thought that Ennis wouldn’t know what was going on there? “It wasn’t like that. I wanted to introduce you again, so you’d get comfortable, so….” 

“I won’t ever be comfortable with this shit, so quit trying! And you can just forget me taking charity from your fancy friends.”

“What?” Jack asked, honestly confused. “What charity?”

“Morgan saying that he needs a horse for his wife. Bullshit! Don’t think I can’t see through that!”

“It’s not like that, I didn’t know he wanted—”

“You set up Friday just so you could see your old friend from Texas, cause you ain’t satisfied with how things are here, and I know it.”

“That’s not true! I—”

“Don’t lie to me, Jack! We’ve got a crap old house, the job’s not turned out the way you wanted, you’re talking to the coach on the phone and thinking on better days. You were gone five days, but all you wanted to do once you got back was wander around Taos, not come to bed with me where you fucking belong!” 

Jack had tried, really tried to keep his temper, but this was a new Ennis yelling at him; his words overflowed in a way they hadn’t fought before. Ennis was twisting what they’d done, all of that fine evening they’d shared. Were his memories of Ennis smiling, Ennis walking in the dark next to him sharing, Ennis pleased that they were celebrating his sale but trying not to show it, was all that just some act that’d been put on?

“Jesus!” Jack yelled at the top of his lungs. He reached over to the beer half drunk on the counter, picked it up and threw the can right up against the door. “Damn right! I want more from you than screwing in bed or anywhere else! I want to live with you, you fucking shithead! Do you even know what that means? It means sharing all parts of life, not just the parts between our legs, goddamnit! I live other places besides between the sheets of our bed!” 

Ennis was breathing heavily. “For twenty-one years you ain’t complained. You should have said something up on Brokeback, if my style ain’t satisfying you.” 

Jack wanted to pick up a chair and throw that, too, but he managed not to, just barely. “This isn’t about our fucking style and you know it! It means going to town on Friday night and doing stuff together. Living.” He took a step closer. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that I might need somebody to know about us? You think you can live in a hole the rest of your life, but…. Damn, Ennis, I’m proud of you! Proud of what you’ve done, of what you’re doing, and it pleases me to tell Morgan about that.”

“Parading my business in front of him.”

Jack groped for the truth, for why it had been important to him to be at that gallery. “Morgan is the only person in New Mexico who knows what you mean to me. I can be open in front of him, honest about who you are and who I am, with no explanations needed or questions asked. I want that. I need that. I get so tired sometimes….”

“Tired of me full time already, Jack?” Ennis sneered.

“Hell, yes!” Jack roared. “Tired of not having you. In plain sight and fucking far away! Shit, one night spent together in town like normal people, we could have found a pool hall maybe, shot some eight ball, but no, you got to go to the fucking bank. Business is always on your mind! You’re always thinking of work! I swear, I’m gonna take a shotgun and murder any more horses you bring to the stable!”

“If you don’t like me the way I am, then to hell with it, keep that gun out and murder me too! You always gotta be shoving at me, wanting me to feel this way or that way. Jesusfuckingchrist, ain’t it enough that I’m here?” 

“You aren’t really here, Ennis, you’re always someplace else!”

“How about all those trips you been taking? Don’t think I forgot how you said you took advantage of being away from Lureen on those trips you went on for L.D. You doing the same thing now, Jack?” The breath Ennis took in was ragged, with a hint of a sob to it. He swiped one hand across his eyes. “I knew you’d be traveling for this job. I thought it wouldn’t be any problem, but you’re the one who’s someplace else! Five fucking days gone, and what do I get, Jack the prick tease and my truck wrecked.”

The clock on the wall said three oh one, but Jack felt like maybe it’d gone back in time to when him and Ennis weren’t together and hadn’t ever told each other truths. He suddenly couldn’t even drag up the energy to defend himself. 

He turned away, pulled out one of the kitchen chairs, and sat down in it. “We’ll get it fixed,” he said, wearily.

“No, we won’t,” Ennis said through clenched teeth. “It’s done for.”

Jack looked up at him. “From hitting a deer?”

“Biggest buck I’ve ever seen. He stove in the whole front end, smashed the windshield too.”

“Shit.” 

“Not thinking any more of putting our money together, are you?” Ennis wasn’t letting go. “I’ll find some junker somewhere. I’ll need it to find another job.” 

“You aren’t going to need—”

“Says God almighty Jack Fucking Twist.”

“Go to hell, Ennis.” 

“I imagine I’ll meet you there, but for now I’m fucking tired and I’m going to bed.” 

Ennis slipped on the beer that had splashed on the floor, caught himself and hollered “Damn it!” and then went on toward the bathroom door that, like the rest of the crazy house, was oddly placed, in the middle of one kitchen wall. He slipped again on the water that had dripped when he’d thrown his shirt but managed to stay up. He closed the door behind him, but it popped open again. 

Jack sat there on one of the chairs they’d brought from his house in Amarillo, his hands hanging between his legs like he was a tired boxer resting between rounds. He could hear the sounds of Ennis pissing the evening’s worth of beer and wine away and felt like maybe he was being pissed away too. Flushed right down the toilet…. He rubbed his face all over with the palm of his hand. Damn, he felt guilty. Sad and mad and guilty as sin, because he’d wondered if maybe he’d pushed Ennis too far and he had. Although he hadn’t thought so at the time, the way things had been between them during the evening. Only now, with Ennis finally home after hitting that damn deer.

Ennis came back out in just his shorts and didn’t give him a glance. Jack knew, because he looked, the way he always looked, the way he always gave in, the way he always hoped that things weren’t as bad as he thought they were. He watched Ennis’s back retreat through the empty front room and then turn left into the bedroom. He waited for the door to slam but it didn’t. Probably Ennis thought slamming was a womanly thing to do. 

He didn’t know what he was sitting there for. All his muscles ached, and he felt godawful tired. His eyes burned from being so tired. There was a big couch in the back room that he should go stretch out on. He thought about that for a while and then realized that he was counting in his head: _one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…._ He couldn’t seem to get past eight, and those were the ticks of that damn clock, the one he’d looked at when he’d been afraid of what was keeping Ennis away. 

What was that old saying? _Be careful what you wish for._ He’d wished for Ennis to come back, and look at what he’d got. Fucking dickhead screaming at him, all wrought up over his truck smashed, and BJ talking down to him, and thinking his job was no more…. 

Guess those might be reasons for anybody to get wrought up, especially a guy like Ennis who was so hard on the outside and so unsure on the inside, but…. They’d never had a fight like this before. Crap, not even that time at the lake. Thinking about it made him flinch. He’d driven away from that morning knowing they were finished, the end between him and Ennis, and it had nearly killed him to even consider it…. 

A squeak from the bedroom meant Ennis had climbed into bed. His side squeaked a lot, and they’d joked about it, saying they had to remember to use the other side too, and give it equal lovemaking time. They took care to call it lovemaking, ever since that first time Ennis had said it in Fort Worth. Jack remembered the jolt to his heart when he’d heard that word. He hadn’t heard it tonight, though. 

No, they hadn’t ever had words like this. They had taken care all those long years of meeting up in the mountains not to bring their foul moods or their doubts with them. Jack wouldn’t let anything interfere with his time with Ennis, and he knew Ennis had worked the same way. They each knew they wouldn’t have any time to bring things back to rights, no opportunity to find their balance again. Their thoughts had festered instead, finally coming out in one gigantic upheaval of emotion, like an earthquake deep underground forcing a jagged mountain straight up into the air. That’s what their fight at the lake had been. Fourteen months ago, now. Jack looked down at the floor between his legs. Fourteen months. 

Was this a fight like that? Back then, Ennis had been sparing in what he said. Nothing like tonight, when for once the words had poured out of him. He’d changed all right, had charged straight ahead in his anger, not holding back…. 

Jack drew back from his misery. He considered that, or at least tried to through his flat-out exhaustion. Maybe… maybe they’d lashed out at each other in this new way because…. Because they knew they could find their balance again? That this was different from mountain-time? 

Hell, he didn’t know. He wasn’t any Doctor Joyce Brothers. What he did know was that he didn’t want to sleep on the sofa in the back room. 

He hauled himself to his feet and visited the bathroom, where he kicked the jeans that Ennis had left on the floor to the side. When he came out, he was careful of the water and the beer, sparkling on the kitchen tile, that had tripped up that dumbass Wyoming man he knew. 

The nightstand light on his side of the bed was on. He walked in as Ennis was rolling over on his side toward it and punching his pillow like it had offended him. His eyes, maybe not as hard as they’d been, flicked up to Jack and then away. 

“You still here? Thought you’d be long gone by now.”

Jack pulled his shirt off over his head. “This is our house,” he said. He kicked off his shoes and then off came his Dockers, the belt buckle clanking. “And this is our bed.” He sat down on the mattress to pull off both his socks. “This is my side of our bed, and I’m getting in it.” He went down on his back, then popped up again, shut off the light, and pulled off his t-shirt. “This is where I am.” Down he went and rolled over onto his side, facing away from the most aggravating man he knew. “Good-night, you goddamned fucking shithead.”

Ennis didn’t say anything in return, just a sigh of breath exhaled that might’ve been _Huh._ Or maybe not. 

Jack closed his eyes. At least Ennis wasn’t bleeding to death in some ditch.

*****

The clock showed five thirty-five when Jack’s eyes popped open. He groaned, feeling like shit, before he remembered why he felt like shit. It wasn’t his body that hurt as much as how he felt inside. The anger didn’t come back for a good thirty seconds. 

“Ahhhhh.”

That must be what had awakened him. That sound coming from the other side of the bed. The moaning. 

“Unhhhhh. Arrrr.” 

Jack went over onto his side. The sun was rising early on these July mornings, and the gray, predawn light peeking around the blinds clearly showed Ennis sleeping. But his face was scrunched up like he was in pain. There were lines straight across his forehead as he struggled with whatever was going on in his mind.

“Ahh!”

For a few seconds, Jack resisted. He was fucking mad at Ennis, who had no call to be mad at him, who should have instead been apologizing for being so dumb as to hit the damn deer and throwing Jack into worry as bad as any he’d had. Ennis, who had some explaining to do, because Jack wasn’t sure which was the true man, the fellow who’d walked with him in Taos or the one who’d yelled at him in their house. 

But here was one of those nightmares Ennis had. 

It’d taken a lot to get Ennis to admit that he was visited by bad dreams, most often scenes of his daddy going after him, sometimes with Earl or Earl’s body or Earl’s ghost in them too. He’d been embarrassed that he was so weak. He hadn’t told the whole truth about them right away, it coming through in dribs and drabs over their first days together. After the third nightmare, Jack had finally pulled out of him that he was going to be awakened more than he’d thought by Ennis struggling to get away from his demons. 

Ennis viewed his confession in the same light as saying he ate children for breakfast. But Jack didn’t see it that way. Here was a chance to do something real for Ennis. He was a hard man to do for, and here was a way Jack could provide whatever it was Ennis needed. Most of their time in Texas trying to get back together, Jack had been demanding, saying this is the way it was going to be or it wasn’t going to be at all. He hadn’t known he could do that and had found a new side of himself. He’d had to stick with, because any other way and he’d be going down under water for the third time, the way he felt so strong on Ennis and how hard he’d worked to push him out of his mind. 

“Uhhhhuhhh!”

Jack sighed out loud. After the way they’d thrown words at each other, he should have expected this. Something was preying on Ennis’s mind. Well, good, he hoped so.

Ennis’s head tossed back and forth on the white pillow. His fingers were up against his chest now, clenched like claws, and his chest was starting to heave. 

“Nooooo!”

He couldn’t stand against the pain in that voice. He didn’t want to stand against it. Jack shifted closer and put his arm across Ennis’s stomach, carefully, because Ennis had been known to swing tough and fast when being touched before waking. Jack had learned through hard lessons the right and wrong way to get Ennis aware.

“No! Aaaaaaa…. Nooooooo!”

“Shhhhhh. It’s all right. It’s all right. Ennis, wake up.” 

It never worked right away. It always took a little while to get through to him. At the end, as he got closer to opening his eyes, his senseless cries usually became words. 

“God, don’t do…. He don’t….”

“Wake up, Ennis, it’s okay. You’re right here with me. It’s all right.” Jack went up on one elbow and stroked the side of Ennis’s face with the backs of his fingers. The skin felt cold as ice. 

“Nooo! Nooooooo!”

Whatever this nightmare was about, it was hitting Ennis hard. Tears that would never be shed in the light of day were squeezing out from under his shut-tight eyelids, and all of Jack’s resentment disappeared, seeing what Ennis was going through right then.

_Damn your daddy for laying this on you._

Jack leaned closer. His lips brushed against Ennis’s wet cheek. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “Wake up. You’ll be safe with me.” 

With a cry that sounded like a trapped animal, that raised the hair on the back of Jack’s neck, Ennis shoved him away and sat halfway up, propping himself on one elbow while the other hand reached out like he was desperate. 

“Jaaack!” Ennis moaned. His eyes were still clenched tight. “Jaaaaack!”

Without thinking, Jack grabbed his fingers. “I’m here! I’m—”

A second later he was flat on his back with Ennis on top of him, being attacked with fists that weren’t aimed anywhere in particular, were instead being launched from wherever Ennis had been taken. Jack blocked one punch with his forearm, and then another. The mattress rocked and squeaked with the force of the blows, and all the while he was soothing, trying to break through, saying in a voice as calm as he could make it, “Ennis, wake up now. It’s all right. I’m here, it’s all right.” 

The storm ended suddenly. Ennis’s eyes opened, and he gazed down on Jack with a sharp drawn breath and a look that Jack didn’t ever want to see again: grief, deep felt. Heart felt. Heart struck. There could only be one thing to cause that, Jack felt sure he knew. 

He reached up to put his hand flat against Ennis’s cheek. “I’m here. Right here with you. It was just a dream.”

It wasn’t every man who saw himself brought back from the dead, but he was sure that’s what was happening as the look in Ennis’s eyes changed, from sorrow that had no end to relief that the world could keep spinning—because the worst thing that could happen hadn’t happened after all. 

“Oh, Jesus,” Ennis groaned. “Jack.” He turned to put a kiss in the palm of Jack’s hand. Then he dropped down flat, resting his head on the shoulder being offered for shelter, and wrapping himself around Jack as close as he could get with clutching hands and legs. 

Not thinking, only giving, Jack grabbed with his arms and held on tight too, to let Ennis know he wasn’t alone. One of his hands went up to his hair, petting, stroking. 

“Shhhhh. S’all right. It’s all right.” 

Ennis pressed even closer; the whole length of his body was up against Jack’s side and half of his front, and Jack could feel that strong arm around his waist. Ennis still did not quite believe the nightmare was over. 

“It’s okay,” he whispered. “We’re here. I’m here. Nobody can get us now.” Most times, his daddy was after Ennis somehow. With a tire iron, or strangling him, something. The last time, two weeks ago, he’d been holding the boy’s head under water. 

Ennis’s hand that had been splayed above his hipbone curved more, grabbing to make sure, Jack figured. 

“You here?” came the question, muffled. He could feel Ennis’s lips move against his skin. 

“I’m here,” he said softly, and he dropped a kiss on the hair he loved to play with. 

“I… I was dreaming again.” 

“I know. That was a bad one.” 

His answer was a sigh that Ennis would never make at other times or places, a sigh that was not strong, not manly, a lay-down sigh that said _Just let me rest here with you._

Jack responded the way he always did at such times, with a soothing sound, because words wouldn’t be welcome in this other place they would stay in for a while. Here it was only Ennis and him, needing and needing to give, with nobody judging, especially not themselves. 

He settled down to just feeling this weight in his arms, and remembering. Reminding himself of the lifetime of fear and denial that Ennis had overcome in order to be living with him.

Remembering that, it maybe was hard to hold onto his anger from the night before. At least it didn’t seem so important now. 

After a time had passed, long enough for him to feel the stiff tension slowly leaving Ennis’s body, he asked, quietly, “You want to tell me about it?”

For their first weeks together, Ennis had mostly resisted that question. But even he had to admit that sharing his horrors, being able to talk about his daddy with Jack freely, had helped him get a few truths straight in his head. Lately, he hadn’t said _no_ when Jack asked.

“You still interested in hearing?” Ennis hadn’t moved at all; he was still pushed against Jack’s chest. “Considering you think I’m a shithead and all.”

“Yeah, well, you think I’m a prick tease. Are you willing to talk to a prick tease?”

Ennis took in a long breath and then let it out in something that sounded like a sigh. “Guess so.” 

“Was it your daddy again?”

“Uh-huh.” 

“Was he trying to kill you again?” Jack asked. 

Ennis went still and didn’t answer for a span of time, maybe twenty seconds. “Not me,” he finally said low. “You.” 

“I figured that.” 

“First time you’ve been in one of those dreams, Jack.” 

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Bad thing while it was happening.”

Jack stroked his fingers through Ennis’s soft hair. He let the strands of it thread through his fingers a few times before he let his hand rest where it was. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he whispered. “I could tell it was worse than usual.” 

“Hell, yes,” came Ennis’s muffled reply. 

“Want to tell me the rest?”

“If I don’t, you won’t let me be.” 

But Jack knew that was one of the games they played with each other; Ennis acted like he was dead set against something but really wanted to be coaxed. Only problem was, sometimes Jack had a hard time figuring out when it was a game and when it wasn’t. 

“We were in an old pick-up my daddy drove.”

“You and me?”

“My daddy and me.” 

“How old were you?” Ennis’s dreams were flexible with time and age; sometimes he’d be a boy of nine being taken to see Earl’s corpse for the first time, other times he’d be nineteen, visited by his daddy’s spirit. 

“I was… right now. Me the way I am. He was driving and I was sitting next to him.”

When there wasn’t any more coming, Jack asked, “Where was he driving to?”

“I… don’t know. On route 64, I think. Trees all around, curvy, the way it is near Ute Park. Not sure what direction. He was crazy, laughing. The way he got sometimes when he was liquored up. I wanted to tell him to slow down, but I didn’t.”

Jack had noticed that often in Ennis’s dreams of his dad, he wanted to say something. He almost never did. 

“I looked to the road and there was a deer, just standing there. Not like the one last night that jumped out of nowhere at me. This one lifted its rack high and stared straight at us. Jack, it knew we were coming.” 

“Knew it was going to get hit?”

“Yeah. Cause my daddy, he saw it, took aim with the truck like he was looking down a rifle barrel. I remember, I grabbed hold of the strap overhead, knew it was gonna happen, Daddy and the deer staring each other down.” 

“Did it happen?” 

He could feel as well as hear the gulp that Ennis took, the action of his throat as he swallowed abrupt. “I…I don’t want….” 

Jack shifted, tried to take more of Ennis in his hold. “Better to talk it out.” 

“I know.” A pause while all Ennis did was breathe, but eventually he went on. “I put my hand out to the steering wheel. I knew my daddy wouldn’t listen to anything I said to stop him, though I don’t know what I was trying to do. Foolish thought, we would have gone right off the road…. The second I touched the steering wheel, Daddy disappeared and it was me sitting where he’d sat, aiming right at that buck.” 

“Were you able to stop?”

The smallest shake of Ennis’s head. “Too close. Going way too fast. Worst part was…. didn’t hit the deer. Turned into you, so I hit you. Jesus, Jack.” 

Even knowing what was likely coming, it was hard to hear. A jolt went through Jack, a fear born of imagining what that might feel like, being hit by two thousand pounds going at speed, and even worse imagining a flash of vision, seeing that it was the man he loved killing him….

“Shhhhh, it’s all right,” he soothed, rocking Ennis and not meeting any resistance. He was getting the comfort he needed too, of knowing the real Ennis, his Ennis, wasn’t in that dream at all but safe in his arms, needing him. 

“Wasn’t all right then,” Ennis said gruff. 

“I guess it wasn’t.”

“Next second I was down on the road next to you, but you were….” 

That wasn’t a breath taken in, it was a sob disguised, and sudden Jack had to keep back one of his own. Ennis hadn’t ever had visions like this before. Jack felt that he was shaking, but maybe that was Ennis trembling? Or maybe both of them. 

“You were long gone,” Ennis went on, his voice thin. “Nothing I could do.” 

Jack tried to swallow his irrational fears and told Ennis what he told himself. “It’s all right. Not real.”

“I tried. Shook you. Took you up on my knees. Breathed air into you like they do.”

“It’s okay.” 

“I looked for blood, but there wasn’t any. Then… you know how dreams are.”

“I know.” 

“The next I looked on you…. Jesus!” Like it was something he needed to get rid of fast, Ennis wiped at the wetness on his cheeks. “You were wearing the shirts. They was soaked in blood.” 

“Our shirts?”

A dumb question to ask, but Jack was feeling maybe as shook up as Ennis was. The picture of himself lying across Ennis’s lap, his head lolling back, his eyes wide open sightless to the sky…. That’s what Jack figured Ennis was seeing in his memory, and it’s what he couldn’t help but see too. And now, blood-soaked….

“Yeah, our shirts,” came the husky reply. 

Jack pushed out air. “That’s a hell of a dream, bud. What else?”

There was a noticeable pause. “That’s it.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“What, you want to hear the part about how I sat there in the middle of the road and cried like a baby? I said there wasn’t anything else.” 

“You sure?”

Of a sudden, Ennis came up out of his arms and hovered over him, looking down with a strange mix of expressions: annoyed and scared and, at the same time, taking in every second of seeing Jack that he could. Jack could feel that look as if he was being touched by Ennis’s fingertips roving across his forehead, brushing across his eyelids, down his nose to his lips….

At the same moment that Jack’s dick came to life, he felt movement and then a sudden hardness against his thigh, where Ennis was leaning.

“I’m sure, you asshole.” Ennis said it tender. 

Jack reached up because he had to feel stubble against his palm. “Just checking, shithead.” 

Ennis leaned in closer and swiped his nose against Jack’s, pulled back again and looked like he was about to say something. Jack wrapped both hands around his neck, nodded, and then slowly, slowly, began to lift his head at the same time Ennis drifted back down toward him. 

He took Ennis’s lips as they met in the middle, the way it should always be between them, he reckoned, and at the first touch he sighed because it felt right. The hell with whatever there was that still needed settling between them; for now, right now, this was what he wanted. 

Ennis mumbled something as the kiss began to deepen, he couldn’t make it out but that was okay, whether it was asshole or dickhead or dumbass or prick tease. Jack went back against the pillow and Ennis followed him, letting all his weight rest on Jack because he knew Jack could take it. 

Oh, yeah, he could take it. 

Ennis kissed him like he would soon disappear, or like the next hour he would leave for a year-long trip and this was their last chance to be together. Or maybe like he’d seen a vision of Jack dead and kissing him would make the sight go away. Jack kissed him back because Ennis’s desperation was his own, flowing from one heart to another, the way their lives should be, were almost, were going to be....

This was a reunion after a separation not months long but only days, but still so hard, it seemed, more than either of them had realized, if their angry words meant anything. 

Lips against his own, familiar lips, lips he’d yearned on for years, the body that his own body craved stretched out against him, Ennis’s familiar tongue having its way in his mouth, with that sweet taste and unmistakable way of moving…. Jack groaned and surrendered to the moment they’d been working toward the past twelve hours. Postponed, maybe, but never really in question that it would happen. 

Long after Jack had shifted and Ennis had lifted up enough to give their growing dicks the room they needed, then coming down on Jack again, their mouths not breaking apart, long after that and right about the time that Jack knew he had to have more, a lot more, Ennis finally pulled back on straightened arms and looked down at him. 

Moved one hand to Jack’s hip, rested it there. Said in his deepest voice, “Turn over, Jack.” 

Jack looked up at him, not able to keep a smile to himself—

—not because their twenty-one year anniversary had been on his mind, that night when Ennis had shot his hot load into Jack’s body for the first time, changing Jack’s whole way of looking at the world, because he hadn’t ever wanted something and been given it so unexpectedly, so completely as on that night, when the fondness he was feeling for this man who kept so much of himself to himself and the need he had for the touch of a man came together in an explosive thirty seconds that he wouldn’t ever forget and fused him and Ennis together in his heart and in his mind…and in his body that couldn’t ever truly be satisfied with anybody else after that one night….

Twenty-one years later, looking into brown eyes that were like to eat him whole, Jack hooked his thumbs in his shorts and skinned them off, Ennis helping him and doing the same—

—not because in Kansas City stray thoughts of him and Ennis together kept breaking through the details of the cattle convention, he’d be walking by a shop in the Radisson, see three hundred dollar boots for sale and think of Ennis sitting on the side of their bed taking off his well-used, on-their-last-legs work boots at the end of the day, tired, laying back into Jack’s arms, the best hour of the twenty-four, the best way for him to have Ennis to himself, skin to skin, he wanted that badly and sometimes it seemed he could feel them pressing together that second even when they were separate….

He reached over for the nightstand drawer and the KY—

—not because he understood that after encountering his daddy Ennis needed to be the one in charge in their bed, for Ennis had never stood up to the bastard, always had been cowed by him and memories of him, and it seemed especially after those nightmares that he woke from sweating and trembling and grabbing hold of Jack that him taking charge was needed, because Ennis had to convince himself his fear of his daddy hadn’t robbed him of what he felt was the essential sign of masculinity, deep in his heart and despite any conversions to queerdom he might say he’d made, the ability to fuck and fuck well, and that he surely did….

Ennis was breathing heavily now, and Jack reached out with his fingers greased to take a handful of the only dick he wanted up his ass—

—not because he needed to grab hold of something real that he knew for sure about Ennis, for this had always been there for them, the sex, the need they had for each other in that way among all the other ways but that way, yeah, the grunting and the sweat and the slicked up dicks and how Ennis groaned when he came and how Jack had jerked off a thousand times to that memory….

A final swipe of the KY over Ennis’s tight balls the way Jack’d learned he liked, a warning hiss that if he didn’t turn over he’d be rolled over, so Jack flipped himself, went down on his elbows and raised his ass high—

—not because the next-to-last time they’d been together he’d asked for the same and slid into Ennis with a strangled moan as he took his pleasure, because there wasn’t any adding up in his head going on, not some balance he was going after, the balance was him and Ennis side by side, and what happened between them and their dicks was different, and he’d not felt ashamed to be taking it up the ass for years, because that was who he was….

One finger rough into him, another quick, Ennis wasn’t wasting any time and Jack grunted his okay, felt goddamned good, so when Ennis grabbed his hips and put his dick where Jack could feel it that timeless moment before it slid in deep, he shook all over right before—

—not because he loved this son of a gun, his Ennis, had longed for him for twenty years, had torn his heart up leaving him, had to remake his dreams when there Ennis was, hat in hand, and there his dream was right at that moment pushing his dick exactly where Jack wanted it to be and he took in a breath as Ennis slid home….

All other honest reasons aside, Jack rolled over because he wanted to be fucked, and be fucked by Ennis, right then, at that moment, in their bed.

The body’s need made everything simple. 

He lowered his head, remembering all the other times he’d done the same, but each time seemed different anyway, heard Ennis’s sudden release of breath as his dick was taken in and held, and Jack knew how that felt, the ghost-feeling of the same came to his dick as he was rocked cause Ennis started moving, pulling out, pushing in, and damn! it felt good, never could explain it or understand it, this need he had to be filled up, a strong man’s dick stretching him out, something in him otherwise unknown rearing up and demanding its due, had spent his whole life it seemed giving it its due, chasing impossibilities and heartbreak, now all in the past, swept away by Ennis behind him, under him, next to him, Ennis reaching for him, touching him, calling out his name in the middle of the night, needing him, fucking him, fucking him good the way they both craved, jesuschristalmighty he was hard, went to touch himself but Ennis wouldn’t let him, reached around and took Jack’s dick in hand instead, was rough with him, not gentle, trying to wring his dick dry and Jack howled out loud how surprised he was, how good it felt, lightning in his dick going to be shooting out to Ennis’s hand any minute, any second now, so good, damn he wished he could wait, hold off, take more of this because they should have done this right away, but there was no way he could stop it, it would gush out of him any second, here it was, here it was….

“Can’t hold back,” he wheezed. “Here goes!”

…jetted out of him, Ennis gasping right along with him, because he wanted it too, knew exactly how it felt, not like Lureen who’d asked Jack once, Jack jerked forward panting for air as he spurted into Ennis’s hand cupped around the head of his dick, and knowing that Ennis was gathering his spunk like it was something precious drew out one last gush that seemed to come from more than the roots of his balls, drawn up from his center and he couldn’t help but moan as he put that hidden part into Ennis’s keeping….

…held himself up on shaking arms, felt it as Ennis smeared the cum on his belly, the kisses across his back, wet, loud, hard, like Ennis was trying to say something with it all, Jack within his care, surrounded by Ennis, the hand around Jack’s waist, the kisses, the dick shoved tight not moving, and Jack got the message that no words would ever say, smiled down to the sheet, knew the moment Ennis thought to hell with anything else, drew back and for the next minute growled his way through an ass pounding such as Jack wouldn’t forget soon, not that he forgot much of this man who with one of his groans did it again, shot his hot load where Jack wanted it to be, Ennis safe with him, him safe with Ennis, no dreams could bother them, no bad dreams, only good dreams that’d come true. 

Ennis came down on Jack’s back that way he had, and Jack released his locked elbows and let himself be driven down to the mattress. He lay there heaving in breath despite the weight on him, as there was no way he would ask Ennis to move even if he blacked out from not being able to take in air. These were some of his favorite moments, thought on often, the way they’d get stuck on one another, a hard dick softening, sweat, and seed shot deep connecting them in this real world. 

Eventually the hard dick did soften and he felt it slip away. Ennis stirred like he’d been awakened by that happening. That had probably been the case, Ennis being one sleepy man after lovemaking. Jack finally lifted a shoulder, and Ennis rolled off onto his own side of the bed. 

They were messy, smeared with cum, marked with shit, and smelled to high heaven, but Jack didn’t give a damn about the state of their sheets or their noses. He pushed, wordless, until Ennis went further onto his side, and then he tucked himself around the curve of shoulder, the too-thin ribcage, and the hard-muscled stomach. He got no resistance; Ennis didn’t seem to mind them going back to sleep the way they were with Jack spooned behind him. 

Good. Whatever the hell those angry words had been about—and Jack at the moment was too tired to think on what they’d fought about—they’d figure it all out. Later. 

Ennis pressed his hand over Jack’s at his waist. “Good you’re finally home,” he mumbled, and not ten seconds later, Jack felt his body slacken as Ennis fell asleep. 

*****

 

“Damn,” Jack mumbled as he came awake. The grittiness in his eyes and the freshly plowed space in his ass told him not much time had passed. The clock showing six fifty-four confirmed it. Might as well go piss since he was up.

But when he hauled himself upright the sounds that’d brought him awake played again in his mind. A rifle being cocked, a safety being flipped off, their side door opening and closing. 

One glance showed him he was alone in the bed. He scrambled up and ran, skidding as he went through the doorway, around and then through the useless living room and into the kitchen. He stopped at the sink window, tense, only noticing as he pressed up against the counter that he was naked. 

Nobody in the side yard, no shapes he didn’t recognize in the forest, nothing lurking by his truck…. Ennis standing down by the side of the stable, looking into the field behind it where he turned the horses out to graze. He was holding the rifle in his right hand, the barrel pointed to the ground. 

Jack squinted to try to make out his expression, then he gave up because it was too far. No immediate threat, but Ennis sure was checking out something….

He dashed back to the bedroom for pants and shoes, dressed fast, and then went down on his knees to grab his shotgun from under the bed. The shells were in the top dresser drawer, the one on the right that was his. He grabbed them and was loaded by the time he eased open the kitchen door. 

But when he closed it, along with the click of the lock he heard the dull, unmistakable _crack!_ of a rifle shot. Ennis was nowhere in sight, but the sound came from the back field. Jack broke speed records getting there.

When he rounded the stable and saw Ennis walking slowly across the field toward a heap in the dirt, his all-out run slowed to a jog, although he kept the shotgun up and ready. What the hell was it that Ennis had….

Ennis’s head came up abruptly and he whirled around when he heard Jack coming up behind him. For a couple seconds Jack feared he’d be feeling a bullet through his chest, as Ennis usually hit what he aimed for. 

The rifle that’d been brought up sharply was pointed to the dirt again. “Your daddy ever teach you hunting safety?” Ennis asked with a scowl. 

Jack ignored him. “What’d you shoot at?”

“What’d I hit, you mean.” Ennis walked toward it, Jack trailing behind. “Coyote. Think I got it.” 

Jack knew better than to assume any creature with teeth and a mean disposition was dead just because it’d been shot at, but there wasn’t any question this time, with half the thing’s head blown away. He walked past Ennis and hunkered down near it. “Your aim hasn’t changed with time. Good shot. How far was this?”

Ennis shrugged. “Close. Forty yards, maybe. I’ve pissed that far.” 

“How’d you know the coyote was here? I thought you’d sleep for hours.” 

“Didn’t mean to wake you.” 

“That’s okay.” Jack stood up, stretching his back to the sun that felt good on his skin, then made sure the safety on the shotgun was put back on. 

“I noticed the horses was nervous Thursday morning. Figured something was going on. Look at Delilah.” He jerked his head toward the far corner of the pasture where the bay mare was standing all aquiver, head up, ears pricked, not missing a move they made. Not far from her was Jigger, more interested in the grass with morning dew sweetening it. “She’s all het up.” 

“That’s a high-spirited mare you got there all right. More like a thoroughbred.” 

“The way she’s built, she might have some in her.” 

“A quarter maybe.”

“Yep. No more.” Ennis spit into the grass. “Guess I better get the shovel and bury this damn thing. Then get going on the chores.” He finally came up closer and toed the carcass in the belly. 

Which would definitely mean the start to Ennis’s day, no lazy Saturday morning as Jack wanted, no prolonged breakfast and a retreat to the bed to read the newspaper that was waiting for them down at the end of the drive, no chance that the reading would turn into more physical pleasures as had happened more than once back in Amarillo before they’d moved here.

No chance to figure out what had come over them the night before.

Hell, Jack thought as his shoulders slumped, no chance to head back to sleep right then. He yawned and didn’t try to hide it. 

“Hey,” Ennis said. “No need for you to tend to this, I’ll take care of it. You go back to bed. Looks like you need to.” 

“Why don’t you just… leave this here? Let the vultures get it. You didn’t get much sleep either. Come on back with me.” 

Ennis’s gaze went over Jack’s shoulder to the straggly tree that was the nightly roost for the vultures. Seven, eight of them spent the starlight hours there, only spiraling up into the sky after dawn, once the air had heated and they could catch an updraft.

Jack looked not behind him but up. He wouldn’t be surprised to see one coming in on them already, as their senses of sight and smell were keen, even if they were the ugliest damn birds ever. But so far, no vulture. 

Ennis was shaking his head. “Not on my property. I ain’t gonna leave this thing to attract who knows what else. What’re you thinking?” 

“I’m thinking that the vultures deserve to eat too.”

“Like hell. Bad enough they take over that tree at night, that’s as much hospitality as I’m offering. They got road kill to feed on.”

Jack thought of the deer that’d been made road kill that night and wondered what had become of it. He swung the shotgun up to his shoulder. “Suit yourself. I’m headed back to bed, then. Going to sleep until noon.”

He was already halfway back to the stable when Ennis called, “Hey, Jack.”

“What?” He turned and waited for Ennis to catch up with him. 

“Thought I’d say…. Nothing.” 

Jack brought up one of the things on his mind. “You’re going to need a truck.”

Ennis looked off to the side. “Suppose so.” 

“I haven’t told you about this before, but there are two trucks up at the feedlot that Corliss asked me to sell. I was going to put an ad for them in the newspaper on Monday. You might like one of them.”

Ennis squinted at him suspiciously, the rising sun hitting him in the face. “I ain’t asking for no price break.”

“I’m not giving one,” Jack said right back. “Business is business. I set the prices already.”

“That so. Maybe I can’t afford your prices.” 

“No matter where you buy, you’ll need to pay. I think you’ll like these trucks. One of them anyway.”

Ennis started walking again, and Jack went right with him. After ten paces, Ennis said, “I guess you got some idea of the kind of vehicle I like.” 

“I guess. Maybe we could go over to the lot and I could show them to you. This afternoon? Tomorrow? You can decide if you’re interested.” 

Ennis grunted. “I probably don’t have a job to interfere. I could just as easy go with you on Monday.”

“Ah, hell, Ennis, you don’t know that….” An apology was on the tip of his tongue, but then he asked himself what the hell he’d be apologizing for. Feeling relief so sharp it almost hurt when he saw that Ennis was okay? No way. He kept his mouth shut. 

They walked on until they were up to the stable before Ennis said, “One way or the other, I need a truck. Makes sense to look at what you got.” 

Jack stopped where the shed was built on the side, where they kept the tools. “Okay, we’ll do that.” 

“Guess I’d better take care of that coyote.” 

Jack offered a quick smile. “No more shooting. You damn near gave me a heart attack.”

“That wouldn’t be good. Come here.” 

Ennis wrapped the arm not holding the rifle around his neck and roughly pulled him forward, to where they were shielded from view in the shadow of the shed door. Jack didn’t object and went with the flow, into a one-armed morning kiss that he thought they both needed. Even though Jack kept it short, when their lips parted Ennis still held him close. 

“Sorry about waking you with my troubles.” 

Jack knew he wasn’t talking about the coyote, but the deer. “That’s okay,” he said low. 

Ennis nuzzled his ear. “Sure glad it wasn’t true.”

“Yeah, me too.” Jack took a breath. “Glad all my worries from last night aren’t true, too. I thought you were dead in some wreck.” 

“I’m fine.” 

“After that screwing you gave me, I’d say you’re fine.” 

Ennis’s hand drifted down Jack’s bare back and started to scratch. His eyes crinkled up, not squinting but from a smile that took up residence there. “You made me feel fine. You like this?” His hand wandered up and down Jack’s spine. 

“Give you a year to stop it.” 

“You shouldn’t be out here without a shirt on. You’ll scare the horses.” 

“That Delilah, she gets scared at a cloud passing the sun.”

It was the wrong thing to say, because it reminded Ennis of his self-imposed duties. He slapped the flat of his hand on Jack’s shoulder blade and stepped back. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you later.” 

Jack started to wander back to the house, feeling a curious mix of relief—that they seemed to have brought things between them back to the way they’d been—and uneasiness, that they’d not really talked about anything. He figured most of what had been shouted last night was because of Ennis not holding his wine and reacting to the wreck, but there was some other things…. Should he just let all that go? Or—

“Hey, Jack!”

When he turned around this time, Ennis was still standing by the shed. “What?” Jack called across the twenty paces that separated them.

“You ever going to show me what you brought from Kansas City in that bag?”

He didn’t try to stop the smile that came over him. “Only if you’re good.” 

“I’m always good.” 

“Not by a long shot, you dumbass.” 

Which was true. Ennis wasn’t always good, or reasonable, and not always willing or able to give Jack what he wanted. And Jack supposed he wasn’t much better. The two of them, they were each hopeless projects for the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, as it would probably take forever to whip either of them into shape. 

He held up a hand, Ennis nodded, and Jack turned back toward cool sheets. It would work out okay. Him and the dumbass, they had time. 

 

*****


	4. Cheerios and Bread

When Jack wandered into the kitchen, scratching his head and yawning, the house was quiet without a sound saying Ennis, but he’d show up sooner or later for lunch. He’d probably finished getting rid of the coyote and taken Delilah out. There were only three pieces of bread on the shelf, so Jack left those for the sandwich he was sure Ennis would want and fixed himself a bowl of cereal instead. The milk carton showed an expiration date from two days before, but he sniffed and it smelled fine, so he poured it over his Cheerios. One of them would have to get some groceries soon. 

As he finished eating, he looked at the phone and decided that there was no time like the present for fulfilling his fatherly duties. He pulled the chair over to the avocado green wall phone that’d come with the house and listened to the ring four hundred miles away in Childress. Tried to pull up some enthusiasm. He’d visited Bobby back in early April before they’d moved to Eagle Nest. And he’d seen Lureen, too, something he’d needed to do, as it had been only a few weeks since she’d come home from the hospital after her mastectomy. 

The last years of their marriage had been a trial for both of them. Nothing too nasty, but the distance between them had grown. Lureen had seemed more and more weary of everything, Jack in particular. There’d been some weeks when they hadn’t talked to each other at all; Jack hadn’t cared and was pretty sure she hadn’t either. Other weeks they’d fought, the first time they’d allowed that to happen, that the careful balance of their marriage was upset with angry words. 

Since the divorce, it seemed that they’d each had a chance to think about things. They’d gotten friendlier the longer Jack stayed in Amarillo. It had been a relief to see his ex-wife looking pretty good after the surgery and with a positive attitude. That was before the chemo started, though. When he went to see her again in late May—and Bobby, too—she’d been pale and wearing a wig to cover her hair loss. 

But it was Bobby he needed to think about now. He’d made some phone calls—few and far between, to be truthful—and it was past time to reconnect with his only child.

The grouchy voice of the boy-almost-a-man finally stopped the phone from ringing. 

“’Lo?”

He could just imagine his boy, tousled-headed and wearing the sweat pants that he considered manly sleeping-wear. A pang shot through Jack, knowing he wasn’t part of that life anymore, and then another one came because he didn’t really want to be part of that life. 

“Sorry, son, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Dad?” 

“Yeah, it’s me. I guess I forgot how late you sleep on weekends.”

“What time is it, anyway?” 

Jack glanced at the clock by the refrigerator. It was painted-over pink on the sun-burst edges, something he’d been expecting Ennis to comment on for weeks, but he never had. 

“It’s seventeen minutes after twelve.”

“Eleven for me, yeah, I see.”

“How come your mom didn’t answer? Is she doing okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. She’s down in Abilene this weekend, going through some big check-up at the cancer clinic.” 

Jack frowned. “Is there something wrong?”

“Nope, everything’s looking good so far. It’s only a check-up. Grandmom Faye went with her. Mom’s hair is even growing back.”

“That so? What color is it now?” Jack was genuinely interested. He hadn’t seen Lureen’s real hair color in years, and he’d often shared a joke with Bobby about it. Jack had always felt good when they connected on that purely masculine level, of not understanding the woman in their lives. 

“She says it’s the same color as when she was a girl. Dark. Chocolatey.”

“Your mama did have beautiful hair back then. So, how’re things with you?”

“Okay.”

“You been playing any hoops lately?”

“Not much. It’s too hot.”

“I guess so.” 

“Cooler where you are, isn’t it?”

“Still feels plenty warm. It cools off fast at night, though.” Jack searched for something else to say, before silence made things awkward. “How’s your girlfriend? What’s her name again?”

“Erin. But I broke up with her two weeks ago.” 

“Oh, yeah? How come?”

He could almost hear the shrug, what might be Bobby’s most characteristic gesture. “I guess I got tired of her.”

“She take it okay?”

“I did it over the phone, and I haven’t seen her since.” 

“You got your eye on another girl?”

“Maybe.”

“Will you tell me who?”

“I don’t think you know any of them. There’s Katie in the trumpet line, Maggie who plays trombone, Sandy plays flute—”

Jack chuckled. “You confining yourself to the band?”

“Why not?” Bobby said with the easy confidence that Jack had always envied him. If Jack had grown up straight, then maybe it would have been the same for him, but the assurance he showed to the world didn’t run so deep. “That way we’ll have the same schedule and go to the competitions together. I’ll have somebody to hang out with. Erin was always giving me a hard time about needing to play for the football games on Friday nights, the concerts, all that shit the band goes through.” 

“You faker, you know you like it. And you’ll be squad leader this year.”

“Yeah.” Bobby tried to sound casual, like he didn’t care, the way he tried to act most of the time, but Jack knew that being selected leader of the drum line was a big deal to his son. “Looks like we’ll have a good football team this year, too. We should be in the playoffs for sure, and that means maybe marching at the Astrodome. Or Texas Stadium in Dallas, depending on if we get that far.” 

“Maybe I can come see you march sometime.”

“If you want.”

“When does the band camp start at school?”

“August, early. Wait a minute, Mom’s got it up on the calendar. Yeah, August 6. You thinking of coming for a visit?”

“Earlier than that. How about in a couple of weeks? I can’t come next Friday—” he was hoping for a normal weekend “—but I was thinking of driving over on the twenty-seventh. What do you say?”

“Sorry, Dad, I can’t do it. Didn’t you know about me going to UT?” 

Jack stood and stretched the cord to look out the window. The clouds were building up over the mountains, heavy-bellied gray clouds that promised rain. He shifted to look down toward the stable. Ennis was using the hose on Delilah, tethered outside, cooling her off after what must have been an all-morning workout. He could make out the steam rising from her coat.

“UT? You’re going to Austin?”

“Yeah.” A hint of enthusiasm was actually showing. “I’ll be there with Charlie for almost two weeks. They got specialized band camps for the different instruments, so we’re going for drums.”

“Two weeks just for drums? You already know how to play.”

“Not just playing, there’s marching, too. And I’ll be rooming with Charlie in the dorms.” 

The light came on for Jack. He grinned and settled back down in the chair, spreading his legs wide. “I get it. Late night carousing, living the life of the college man, getting somebody to buy booze for you.”

“Ah, come on, Dad.”

“And poker. I bet you have all-night poker games. Will you bring your chips?”

“Charlie’s got clay ones.” 

“Then you’re set. What girl can resist clay poker chips? You’ll have a great time.”

“I hope so. Mom says it’s a chance to find out how I feel about living away at college.” 

“I think it’s a chance for you to get into trouble. Have a good time, but don’t do that to your mom.” 

“I won’t. Besides, I called you last time, not her, didn’t I?”

“I’d appreciate not getting another call from an angry dad. Or a chaperone, whatever they’ve got at these dorms.”

“I don’t need a lecture. I get enough of those from Granddad.” 

“I bet you do.” 

“What’ve you been doing lately?” 

“This week I went to Kansas City for a cattle convention. I got home yesterday.” 

“You flew?”

“Sure did. One of the big jets from Denver to KC, but we flew to Denver in a Cessna six-seater from the little airport that’s down the road in Angel Fire. A Silver Eagle plane, they called it.”

“A prop plane?”

“That’s right. The fellow I was with, I think he almost got sick. The motion in a small plane’s so different from when you’re in a jet.” 

“You didn’t get sick?”

“Not me. I like all kinds of flying.” 

“Maybe I could fly out to New Mexico to see you sometime.” 

Jack scratched the side of his face and looked down at his bare feet. Sometime. He’d planned to tell Bobby the facts of his own particular life once the boy got old enough. Coming on eighteen, with his parents divorced, with his dad living with another man: this seemed to be the right time. But since Lureen had started her fight with breast cancer, he’d put off any honest talk. 

He knew Lureen was an excuse, though. The truth was that once Ennis had shown up in Texas to turn Jack’s life even more upside down than it was already, he’d not given a lot of thought to Bobby. Even less as these first months of living with Ennis went by. Maybe that was selfish, but despite knowing he’d been less than the best dad, Jack gave himself forgiveness. This was his first time ever finally having what most people all over the world took for granted. He didn’t have words to express what that did for him. Nineteen eighty-four was the year the aching need inside him was finally filled the way Ennis—only Ennis—could fill it.

Not to mention having sex with him just about every day. Or night. The kind of sex every molecule in him had been craving, the way he wanted it, with the person he needed. The body’s satisfaction: that had gone a long way to distracting him too. 

“Maybe we can arrange that someday. You’d have to fly in to Santa Fe. The airports at Angel Fire or Taos are small and only take charter planes.”

“I guess that’s why you drive in even though you only come visit for the weekend.”

“Sure, it makes sense. So, you’re heading for Austin soon?” 

“We leave tomorrow. Granddad’s driving me down.”

Jack whistled. “That’s a six, seven hour drive with him. Will you be sane when you get there?”

“It’ll be fine. Charlie’s coming, too. His parents will be bringing us back. Before they do, they’re taking us over to the water park in New Braunfels. What’s it called?”

“Schlitterbahn. You remember when your mama and me took you there?” 

“Yep. It was so crowded, it seemed we looked all day for a table to put our things.” 

“I imagine they’ve expanded since then.” 

“I’ll let you know. Will you still come visit? Later on? Since I won’t be here when you’d planned.”

Jack guessed that this was Bobby’s way of saying he wanted to be visited. “I’ll check my schedule at the feedlot and see what’ll work out. I’d like to see you before school starts.” 

“Okay.”

“I guess you won’t be able to say hi to your mama for me when she gets back. You’ll be gone already.”

“That’s right. But… thanks for that, Dad.”

“For what?”

“For you and Mom still talking to each other even though you’re divorced. I know loads of kids whose parents hate each other.” 

“I don’t hate your mama, Bobby, and she doesn’t hate me. We—”

“Yeah, I know. You just grew apart.”

“Well, it’s true that sometimes marriages don’t work out over time.”

“I know.” 

“I’ll let you go then.” 

“What, you don’t want me to say hi to Granddad?” 

“You know where you can put that idea.” 

“I bet I do. So long, Dad. Thanks for calling.”

“Good-bye, Bobby. Have a good time in Austin.” 

He hung up the phone and stood, stretching with his hands on the small of his back, something he did more often now than in his entire life, and being grateful every time making love caused him to feel a little bit sore, a little bit muscle-achy. Wished he’d felt like this regularly when he was twenty-nine and not thirty-nine. 

The calendar that Ennis had taped on the outside of the refrigerator caught his attention. He walked over to it, knowing a fond feeling at the way the days were crossed off. That was a habit of Ennis’s he hadn’t known about. When they first started living in the house, each day would be marked off like it was a prayer Ennis had to say to make sure all would be right with the world. Each night, right after dinner, he’d go over and make the X with a pencil. But lately, Ennis would miss days in a row and catch up later, doing a bunch at once. Jack saw that the thirteenth, yesterday, wasn’t marked yet, but all the other days that week, when Jack had been gone, were. 

He was pulling a first load of clothes out of the washing machine when Ennis showed up, ambling through the door and heading straight for the bathroom. When he came out he washed his hands at the sink. 

“Hey,” Jack said as he shut the dryer door and got it started. The open laundry room flowed right into the kitchen; they weren’t but fifteen feet apart.

“Hey yourself. You starting a load of light colors?”

“Yep.”

“Got room for my shirt?” 

“Let’s give it a try.” 

Ennis retrieved it from where it was still sitting in a puddle of wet in a corner of the kitchen, and then he stuffed it in with some of the shirts and underwear Jack had taken to KC. Then, while Ennis rooted around in the kitchen for some lunch, Jack began to fold stuff that had been dumped on top of the dryer. It was from washing that’d been done while he was gone—towels, and their third and fourth sets of sheets, and a bunch of socks. 

“You finish up the Cheerios? I left them for you,” Ennis said, checking out a cabinet shelf with not much on it but some plates and a plastic margarine container filled with sugar. 

“Yep. There’s bread.” 

“I see it.”

Jack finished folding, then turned around and settled back against the rumbling dryer with his arms across his chest. Ennis was through with slapping peanut butter on bread and was stuffing his mouth with the sandwich, leaning back against the counter next to the refrigerator and sending a look his way from across the room. He cracked a smile, one of his lopsided barely-there smiles, that after all these years still caught Jack’s attention.

“What’s so funny?” Jack asked.

“Ever hear about the women who get off by pressing themselves against the washing machine? You’re doing it in reverse.”

Jack let out a bark of laughter. He threw a clean towel across the room; Ennis caught it with one hand, not even trying. 

“You asshole. What do you know about women?”

“More than I want to. Listen, I been thinking. Let’s go look at those trucks you got for sale this afternoon. A fair number of days you’re over at the lot on a weekend anyway.”

“That’s because you’re usually out with the horses and nowhere in sight.”

“I just got Delilah now, so I got time today. It’s Saturday, so there ain’t likely to be all that many of the workers around, a good day to go. I figured if I bought one of your trucks, I’d drive it into town and talk to the guys at the Texaco, then get some food. I was gonna do that last night before all that shit happened. I might not have a job, but we still gotta eat.” 

It seemed that Ennis would stay convinced that he didn’t have a job until he was proved otherwise. Jack walked over to press against him, pinning him against the counter and being satisfied with the way they fit. He looked his Wyoming man in the eye and grabbed his shoulders. “The whole world isn’t out to get you, you know. And you said last night that I was a worrier. Compared to you I’m a kid sitting at the feet of a giant.” 

Another smile escaped from Ennis. “Least I’m good at something.” 

Jack pushed his hips forward a few times so that their belt buckles clashed. “Might be a few other things you’re good at.”

“Don’t think I can get paid for that.” 

“You don’t really think you’ll get fired, do you?” 

A brown-eyed gaze slid off to the side. “Don’t know. The way Rocky looked…. Like he was putting two and two together.” Ennis’s eyes returned to him, his worry obvious. “Like maybe he’d thought there was something…” his throat worked as he swallowed. “…something wrong with me, and now he knew what.”

“All that from one look at two-thirty in the morning?” Jack asked lightly. 

“Do you think… seemed like he might have had a hint….” A second later Ennis had pushed him to the side and walked across to where the cabinet door was still open. He closed it, not hard, but gently “You suppose folks can tell just looking at me?” 

Jack walked after him to put a hand on his shoulder. He rubbed Ennis’s back in a big circle, and Ennis stood there and let him. The faint smell of horse, that Ennis was seldom without these days, and honest sweat developed because he was trying so hard even on a Saturday morning after not much sleep, tickled Jack’s nose. “Folks can tell that you’ve got me in your pocket?”

“You know what I mean.”

“That you’re queer? I don’t think so. More likely he’s been wondering what a good-looker like you was doing living alone.” 

Ennis threw him a sideways glance. “Now he knows I ain’t.”

“Or he knows that your cousin was visiting, or a friend from Wyoming, or—”

Ennis turned around and grabbed him. “Or the best-looking man in this whole state was worrying where his next fuck was gonna come from, cause I was late giving it to him.” 

“Or that, yeah.” 

Ennis kissed him then as if they were sealing some sort of bargain, and as their tongues slid against one another, Jack thought about how different this was from any of his fights with Lureen. If it had been Lureen who’d exploded at him in the middle of the night, who he’d yelled at in return, and this was the next day, they would have sat down at the kitchen table in the morning and talked it out. It would have been a discussion between adults, sensible and mature on the outside but driving him nuts on the inside. That was her way, the controlled calm that made him feel patronized, after a big explosion of wrath was dumped on his head. 

Wrath that was most often provoked by him, he had to admit, because in the later years he’d had less and less patience with the lie he was living. Words would just escape. Never the words he was tempted to say, never the truth, because he’d made a promise to himself long before and locked those words away. But words nevertheless, sneaking out from under the edges of where the real ones were pressed down, that told of dissatisfaction he could never fully explain, of wanting something so different from what he had, and of no desire at all to make things right between him and Lureen. What was between them was so far from the most important thing in his life that it hardly counted. 

Now the most important person in his life—who had been for years and years—finished kissing him and said, “We need two incomes around here to keep this roof over your head. I don’t want to go back to being a ranch hand, but if that’s the job I can get, I will. There’s not much else I’m fit for.”

“You’re the best man with horses anyone could ever hire. Rocky knows that, Ennis. You’ve already shown your worth. Hell, you’ve had dinner with the family and played poker with the boys. You’re not going to be fired.” 

“We don’t know, do we? I’d ask you to start learning how to live smart and not pull that crap again like you did last night, but I figure you’re like a horse that needs to be led to water to drink.”

“You’re insulting me, Del Mar.”

“I’m glad you noticed. Now, you want to put on some shoes so you can drive to Cimarron? One way or the other, I need a truck.”

Jack nodded and went back to the bedroom to get his footwear, thinking as he leaned over and pushed his feet into his work boots that Ennis going to the feedlot was a big move; he might have driven by a few times but hadn’t ever stopped there, and definitely not in Jack’s company. Jack’s hedgehog was still slowly uncurling, and he sure hoped it was a fine day he saw when he looked around. 

*****

 

The trip from where they lived north of Eagle Nest to Tulip Feedlot west of Cimarron normally took thirty-five or forty minutes. Jack knew that had weighed on Ennis’s sense of fairness, since his own commute to the Cross B Ranch was more like a spit over a fence. But Jack didn’t mind; in the mornings he got the news on the radio, and in the evening going home he tended to just relax and not think on much of anything. 

Jack paid close attention driving the stretch of Highway 64 through the many miles of Cimarron Canyon State Park, where the road twisted and turned with short lines of sight, and where the big Ponderosa pines grew right up to the edge of the two lanes of asphalt. There were usually fishermen after trout in the Cimarron River that followed the road most of the miles, although fewer now in the middle of the day.

Ennis had his window rolled all the way down with his elbow stuck out, the way he liked it even in winter, and the rain that would fall on them eventually was only a drop splattering against the windshield now and then. Jack hadn’t even turned on the wipers yet. 

Ennis broke the easy silence between them. “Looks a lot like that stretch up by the Gros Ventres we used to go to. Remember?”

“No way anybody could confuse them with these mountains.” 

Even so, people from all over came for the northern New Mexico mountain scenery, and somehow he and Ennis had landed right in the middle of it. When Jack thought about that, it was easy to believe there was some cosmic, heavenly justice going on. Here they were, in a place where they could take off for the woods any time, but they were trying so hard to learn how to build lives together in the ordinary way that they never even thought of doing so. 

Jack braked to take a hairpin curve, and Ennis said, “This road ain’t gonna be any picnic in winter.”

“I imagine they keep it plowed, what with the tourists coming in for the skiing.” 

“Most of those are likely to come up from the south, from Albuquerque,” Ennis pointed out. “There might be days you can’t make it in, or nights you can’t make it home and I wouldn’t want you to try. Is there some place in Cimarron you could stay over if you have to?”

“There are some investors making over the Saint James hotel, but it isn’t open yet. Andy lives a couple miles east toward Raton.” 

“You might want to stay with him, then. You know, I’ve been thinking about last night. I think I know why that happened.”

He didn’t even have to glance his way; Jack could tell from the deadpan tone of his voice that Ennis wasn’t being serious. “Oh, yeah?”

“It was Friday the thirteenth.” 

“You superstitious madman.” 

“Ain’t superstitious when it happens.”

“Not after midnight, it wasn’t the thirteenth. All the good stuff happened on Friday.” 

“Bad stuff began then, though. And I’d consider some stuff around six this morning pretty good.”

Jack kept a firm grip on the steering wheel as he took one of the tight curves to the left. “Seems like a mix of both to me, then, both days. I’ve been doing some thinking myself.”

“For you that means talking. What?”

In their mountain-times, Jack would never have said this. He’d always been so careful not to push too hard, not to press too strong. But he was through with the shit that’d kept him dangling on Ennis’s string for years. Or at least, he was trying to rid himself of those habits of giving in, of being too careful. Having patience, that was one thing, but caving in was another. With him and Ennis, he just wanted to be. 

“If something happens again, like it did last night, you’ve got to find a way to give me a call. So I know you’re okay.” 

“Mother hen.”

“There is no way that I feel like a mother to you.”

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah, what?”

“Yeah, I’ll find some way. I don’t know how I could have done it last night, though. But I knew you’d be worried.” 

That was as close to an apology as Jack would get, and since he hadn’t offered one either, it would do.

“You, too,” Ennis said.

“What?” 

“You call me if you’re three hours late or something. I’ll be thinking you’ve run off with the coach.” 

“Not if Gary’s found some guy in San Antonio.”

Ennis looked out the side window as they rolled by the tiny community of Ute Park. “You never know. Gay men and all.” 

Jack snorted but let that pass. Ennis’s views on gay men were formed by gossip and the conservative radio talk shows in central Wyoming, and it didn’t seem that real-life experience—or knowing he was one of those gay men—had so far changed his point of view. 

“Gary’s okay.”

“Must be, you keeping in touch with him.”

Jack had heard Ennis’s discomfort—and the warning—about his friendship with Gary before, and like before, he ignored it. He knew there was nothing going on between him and the college basketball coach who’d once been his lover, and he believed Ennis understood that. His complaining was mainly habit. 

“Thanks for reminding me, I’ve got to call him.”

“Huh.”

The mountains and forest of the state park suddenly gave way to more open land. Now Jack drove east through a treeless prairie that stretched left a couple of miles to the foothills and right all the way to the far-off horizon. Outside the small town of Cimarron, Jack turned north. They’d outrun the rain so far, but here in the open, a good two thousand feet lower than the Moreno Valley, it was hot and muggy. It was good cattle country. The huge CS ranch, headquartered near Cimarron, was proof of that. 

The feedlot was just off the highway. Because of a rise in the ground, nobody passing by could really see the extent of it, how far back it went from the first few pens along the front access road. But one thing about a feedlot that couldn’t ever be hidden, and that was the smell. Jack had gotten used to it and knew his nose wouldn’t even notice after five minutes. He listened to Ennis sniff and swear. “God damn.” 

“It would be worse without the EPA regulations. The inspector comes by all the time. Practically the most important job we’ve got is getting rid of cow shit.”

“You think the big boss will be here?”

Jack raised his shoulders. “Corliss? I don’t know. A couple of times when I went in on the weekend, he was. He and James Perez, the bunk manager, they go in and out all the time. I’m not anxious to share him with you, though. He’s a real son of a bitch. But if you end up buying we’ll have to go up to the office. I might need to introduce you.”

Ennis was looking out the side window again. “Don’t put yourself out on my account.” 

Jack drove along the front part of the lot where most of the buildings were, stopping at the double-wide main office, that was for the moment deserted, to get the pick-up keys. Then he was back behind the wheel, driving past where a few of the workers’ trucks were parked, past the medical pre-fab building with the pens of sick animals behind it, past the on-site stable and paddock that housed the horses they used, on toward the heart of the operation, which was the feed storehouse and mill. 

They got out and he led the way, not toward the trucks that were waiting, but instead over to a small hill behind the mill, where there was the best view of the whole Tulip operation. 

Jack stood there for a minute under the cloudy skies to give Ennis a chance to take in all that was stretched out before them. Somebody who didn’t know cattle might not understand what was going on here, but he felt sure Ennis would. Twenty thousand head were eating high protein grain at Tulip, going from six hundred pounds when they came off the trucks from the ranches to twelve hundred pounds in only four or five months. There was plenty of room in the back pens for another ten thousand steers and heifers, too, if Jack’s efforts in increasing business paid off. 

The cattle were kept in small groups of fifty to a hundred in each pen, the better to finely judge exactly how much feed they needed. And while this was surely more cattle gathered in one place than Ennis had ever seen before, Jack knew his cattleman’s eye could tell that the stock here was thriving under not-too-bad conditions. The worse problem feedlots tended to have was hoof disease caused by poor drainage, with the pens right up front at Tulip the worst offenders. Jack noted that the Herefords that’d been kept there had finally been moved, something he’d been expecting for weeks. 

“So, what do you think?”

Ennis spit on the ground. He stood in his characteristic slouch, his fingers shoved deep in his jeans pockets. “It’s bigger than I thought it would be. Do they keep the horses they ride right here?”

“I think Mack brings his back and forth each day, but the rest of them stay here, yeah.”

“Seems unhealthy to me. They need to be turned out on grass, not mud. Get away from the smell, too.”

“That’d be best, but they do okay.” 

Three pens away, closer to the foothills, a man rode a paint horse among the cattle. He was directing three men on foot doing something with the gate. The rider waved to Jack.

Ennis pointed with his chin. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Eduardo. He’s one of the pen riders. We’ve got a bunch of them plus the head cowboy over them to move the stock wherever they need to go. They make sure we don’t miss any sick ones, too. They’re busy all the time.”

“Those other fellas do the feeding?”

“Nope, that’s done by truck.” Jack squinted at the workers, but he didn’t recognize any of them. “I don’t know who they are. We’ve only got twenty-eight people working here, and I thought I knew them all. Beats me what they’re doing. Maybe repairing the rail.” 

“You were saying a while back that you didn’t think the feed was priced right.”

“I shouldn’t be judging, since I’m in this business so short a time.”

“You ain’t no dummy.”

He threw Ennis a look to check if he was making one of his jokes, but he was regarding Jack from under the brim of his hat with a steady gaze; the words had been serious. “Tulip’s only been open a year and a half. Even less. And this lot is farther west in New Mexico than any other commercial lot, by a long shot. Climate’s important to this kind of custom feeding, and I understand this is a real gamble they’ve got going here.” 

“So they’re underpricing the feed charged to those who send their stock here? To get more customers?”

“That’s got to be the explanation, but I think Corliss is taking it too far. The investors can’t be happy, and I don’t know why they haven’t squawked yet. According to the gal in the office who tells me these things, the whole operation’s running in the red.”

“If this place goes out of business, you’re out of a job.” 

“You’ve got that right.”

“I’m not too interested in moving elsewhere, if we both end up looking.” 

“Is that so? You like it in northern New Mexico?”

Ennis scuffed a toe in the hard-packed dirt. There wasn’t even a blade of grass through the whole place; it was all dirt and mud. Not a tree in sight, either.

“Ain’t so much that,” Ennis mumbled. “Just… I like being settled here with you.” 

Every so often, usually in places unlikely, Ennis would come out with something like that. Some words or some look that made Jack swallow hard, or sometimes his eyes would prickle in a way that had nothing to do with crying and everything to do with how at times he could scarcely believe he was awake. Like last night, in the middle of yelling at each other, Ennis saying he thought of Jack all the time. Damn. What was a man supposed to do with stuff like that? Maybe to somebody else none of it would seem to be cause for feeling like a lovesick schoolboy, but Jack knew his man. Ennis and the way he’d acted last night, with all that crap, with his cautions and fears, was enough to cause any person to seek a psychiatrist’s couch, but then there were times like these, with this being settled talk….

“Yeah. I like being settled too.” 

“You ever gonna show me those trucks? I’ve been mighty patient, not asking questions.”

Jack went back the way they’d come. “I’ve been wondering why you haven’t.”

“I figured you enjoyed keeping me in the dark.” Ennis tipped his hat back. “Like whatever you got in that bag from KC.” 

Jack made no effort to hide his grin. “Driving you crazy, aren’t I?”

“Twist, you drove me crazy years ago. It’s just a question of what you’ll do with what’s left of me.” 

“Don’t give me leading lines like that. We aren’t in the right place for me to tell you. Or show you.”

Ennis looked around like he was mildly alarmed, but with no sign of anybody else except for the cowboy and the other hands fifty yards behind them, he could take the teasing. 

“Besides,” Jack went on, “I’m still pissed off at you for last night. I’ll make you swing in the wind, waiting on what I brought you.”

“The hell.” Ennis’s lips quirked fast and then resumed their normal set expression. “I can wait longer than you think.” 

At that moment came a sound like no feedlot had ever heard, or at least no feedlot besides this one. Ennis stopped between one step and the next, and Jack watched his face as what could only be described as a roar came from the east, where another rise prevented them from seeing what was over there.

Ennis grabbed his hat as if it was in danger. “What the hell was that? That wasn’t any steer.” 

“Nope. That’s the Cimarron River Animal Preserve. Or what’s in the preserve. Nearly scared me half to death the first time I heard it.” 

Ennis looked at him like he was crazy. “Sounded like a lion.” 

“Right on the first guess. Or maybe a tiger, I’m not sure. They’ve got both there, plus bears.” 

“A zoo? Right next to where you’re feeding cattle?”

“It’s not right next door. There’s a trick of the way the land goes, so we hear the sounds as if they were close. And besides, it isn’t a zoo. It’s more like…” Jack scratched below his ear. “More like a Salvation Army for animals. You know, big hunting animals that shouldn’t be in this country to begin with, kept by idiots who don’t know any better than to raise a tiger in their basement. When the tiger finally gets too big to handle, they end up there.”

“You don’t say. I’ve never heard of anything like that. Doesn’t having the lions where they can be heard put the cattle off their feed?”

“You’d think so, but I guess they get used to it after a while.  
They only roar later in the afternoon anyway. Seems our numbers on weight gain and stuff like that is about the same as other feedlots, or so I’m told.”

“You ever gone to see them?”

Jack shook his head. “I’ve always been too busy. Why, you want to go sometime?”

“Sounds like something for kids.” Ennis shrugged. “If the girls were little, and they lived nearby, I could take them. But I’ve got nobody to take now.” 

“Except your own sorry ass. Come on, let’s go look at the trucks.”

Ennis threw a glance over his shoulder in the direction the roar had come from. Then he followed Jack to the other side of the feed mill, where there was a small steel building used for equipment storage. Past that were four trucks in a row, one of them the Jeep that had been causing Jack headaches with the extra miles somebody was putting on it. 

“These are the two for sale,” Jack said, and he pointed to the two at the end. “A Dodge Ram and a Silverado.” 

Now he had Ennis’s full attention again. “I thought for sure they’d be Fords. Ain’t you a Ford man?”

“When I was selling them in Amarillo, sure, then I was a Ford man. Now I’m selling these.”

As he could’ve predicted, Ennis went straight for the Ram. The Silverado was only a year old, flashy with lots of trim, and with an extended cab. On top of that, it was redder than a fire engine. No way could he imagine Ennis driving such a truck. The Dodge was from 1981, the first year that the D series had been remade into the Ram line. The standard cab suited Ennis’s needs, the three-quarter ton 250 was powerful enough to pull his two horse trailer, and it was a nice, ordinary, nothing-fancy white. 

Ennis peeked inside the cab and then held out his hand for the key. He opened up the door so he could pop the hood, and a few seconds later his head was bent as he checked things out. Jack came up next to him, surveying the engine.

“Looks pretty good. How’s it drive?”

“I’ve only been in it once. It did fine.” 

“How many miles on it?”

“Ninety-two thousand. It got new tires at eighty-five thousand.”

“Why’s it being sold? 

Jack pulled back and held onto his hat as a gust of wind threatened to take it away. The weather would be turning soon. 

“That’s a good question. I don’t know. A couple days before we left for Kansas City, Corliss bought two new pick-ups without even consulting me. I thought that was my job. That’s one of them right there.” Jack pointed to another red truck next to them. “And for no reason I could see he told me to get these here sold. I thought the Dodge had another seventy thousand miles in it at least, and I would’ve argued against selling either truck, but the deed was done. Hell, I’m not the boss, I just work here.” 

“Seems peculiar. What’s the price?”

“Twenty five hundred for the Ram. And you know that’s a rock bottom deal. He told me to get rid of them fast and price them accordingly, so that’s what I’m doing.” 

Ennis looked doubtful. “I was aiming to spend two thousand. Maybe two thousand two.” 

“This is a good truck.”

Ennis pushed down the hood and shuffled back to the cab, where he opened the door again. “Seems more than I need. Electric windows, shit.” 

“And an AM-FM radio with good speakers, nice upholstery, gauges for temperature and oil pressure, and less than a hundred thousand miles. When was the last time you had a truck with that kind of mileage?”

“Never have. The truck bed’s banged up some.” 

“What do you expect from a working truck? Have you noticed all the good tie-downs in the truck bed? Not every truck has so many.”

“Yep. But I don’t—”

“The tires are good, hardly any wear. It would ease my mind, knowing you were on good tires for a change, in a reliable vehicle.” 

Ennis lifted an eyebrow at him. “Are you a truck salesman today or the fella I’m sharing a house with?” 

“No reason I can’t be both.”

“Let’s give it a ride.” 

By the time they’d driven halfway to Raton and turned back, thunder was rumbling and a streak of lightning had flashed across the sky. Ennis remarked how well the truck handled in weather and that at least the windshield wipers worked okay. Jack sat back and enjoyed the ride, relaxing. He’d enjoyed the whole afternoon so far, almost like the Friday evening before it. 

Ennis drove through a real downpour in silence, accelerating here, stopping abruptly there, testing the limits of the truck. Jack let him do his thing. 

The cloudburst had dwindled to nothing but a drizzle by the time they got back to Tulip, but even so that meant the dirt in front of the office, where Ennis pulled in, was slicked on top with mud. Jack eyed the black super-duty F-350 pick-up next to them; for sure Corliss was somewhere about. 

He looked over to Ennis as they sat with the motor running.

“I guess this means you’re going to buy?”

“I’m thinking on it.”

“You don’t have to just because it’s—”

“I know that. I’ve been setting aside some cash to give to Junior, to help her get a car for college. Spending those extra dollars on this pick-up might mean she gets less, especially if Rocky tells me to go my way.”

“He’s not going to—”

“Would you quit? I’m the one who knows those folks, not you. You put me in a hell of a mess, Jack.”

Maybe Lureen’s method of settling an argument wasn’t so bad, compared to Ennis and his stubborn ways. 

“You got some time until you need to send anything to Junior,” was all he let himself say. 

Ennis looked at him through squinted eyes. The light was reflecting off the gray clouds that threatened more rain, producing the kind of glare that was hard for most folks to see through. Ennis, with his sensitive eyes, was probably half-blinded. 

“I’m waiting,” Ennis said.

“What for?”

“For you to say it. Come on, I know you want to.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“You want to say you’ll lend me the extra money, don’t you? Or that you’ll pay the extra and get some ownership in this fine vehicle you’re trying to pawn off on me.” 

“I don’t—”

“I can manage this expense fine.” 

“I know you can. You wouldn’t be doing it otherwise. What are you trying to do, put words in my mouth?”

“Just wanted to give you the chance to have it out.”

“Don’t do me any favors!”

“Huh.” Ennis turned the key, and the motor sounds died. “Seems you’re the one doing me the favor. This is one fine truck. More than I want to pay, but I got it and it’s worth the cash. I’ve got to think ahead. If I need to travel to Raton or even Trinidad for a job, it’ll take me there.” 

“Jesus, Ennis, that’s more than ninety minutes away from us! We’ll move before I let you have a commute like that.” 

“Some things you just have to do, Jack. It doesn’t matter. Let’s go and give the feedlot my money.” 

The general office of Tulip Feedlot was an old, double-wide mobile home that had seen better days; compared to the feed storage and about every other building, it was an afterthought and not important. The floor under their feet squeaked and even dipped now and then, as if it was ready to fall in. The counter up front, where Jack had been known to stand and gossip with Marge, his fellow office-worker and the only full-time woman on the lot, looked like a good sneeze would blow it down. The roof overhead, now noisy as the rain picked up again, gave off that tin-roof sound that was sometimes so earsplitting a person had to practically shout to be heard. 

He was getting set to lead Ennis to the desk he used in the corner of the long common room, so they could get started with the title transfer paperwork, when the door to the office at the far end opened wide. 

“Afternoon, Corliss,” Jack said before his boss had a chance to open his mouth.

“Good afternoon, Jack. It’s good to see you back. I understand things went well during the week.”

He’d known that Andy was calling in with reports, including how the new man—him—was doing at the high profile event. “We did okay. And we picked up two more prospects.”

“Good. I wanted to talk to you about something.” Hamilton walked with the grace of an athlete up to the counter and dropped the pile of papers he was carrying. Even though he had to be fifty at least, he looked more like he was ready to start for the St. Louis Cardinals infield. And his black head of hair showed not one gray strand.

Corliss’s unreadable gaze slid over to where Ennis was standing but then came right back to Jack. “I thought I told you to get those trucks sold quickly,” he said in an even voice, without any anger obvious. “Before you left with Andy. I made that quite clear, and only an imbecile wouldn’t have caught on to my meaning. But I checked the paper and there wasn’t even an ad there; I was forced to put one in myself last week. I didn’t appreciate having to do your job when I thought I had hired a man who knew how to get things done. It’s possible I was wrong.” 

Jack felt his face get warm, and he looked down to the floor. Damn if Corliss Hamilton wasn’t any different from L.D. Newsome, both of them sons of bitches, neither one of them hesitating to embarrass a person in front of others. Only L.D. tended to start low and then get louder, until he was hollering at the top of his voice. That had been Jack’s lot more than once over the years, twice right out in the showroom in front of customers, other times in front of other employees. He’d burned each time, wished he could holler back, wished he could smash the goddamned motherfucker in the face… but he hadn’t. 

He’d taken it and taken it, until sometimes he’d wondered if he was a man at all, whether the patience he used in about every area of his life was a sign of weakness and not of strength, when God knew it took all his strength to keep his lips clenched tight. His instinct all his life, from the time his dad had first raised his voice and his fist to him, had been to roll with whatever punches life sent his way. To try to find other ways out, other ways of doing things besides standing up against a man or a situation directly. The times he’d done differently had been few and far between.

Which was one reason he and Ennis had gone on and on through the mountain years, hurting each other practically to death…. 

Jack raised his head and stared at the feedlot boss. Why the hell did it matter? Even if the lot was in a cash flow crunch, a few thousand dollars wouldn’t make a difference. He’d judged it was better to take care of other stuff before he left with Andy. 

He wished he could say something sharp. Cutting. Something that would hold himself up in front of Ennis, who was witnessing this, something that would prove to himself, too, not just to Corliss and Ennis, that he’d changed when he’d finally taken his life in his own hands and left Lureen and Ennis both to go to Amarillo. 

But, shit, if Ennis was right and Rocky was going to toss him off the ranch, one of them had better have a good job. So after a few seconds silence, he did what he’d always done before and let things slide. He swallowed any defense, any explanation, and said instead, “I haven’t had the chance to check the paper. What price did you put on them?” 

“Forty-five hundred on the Silverado, two thousand for the Ram.” 

He blinked. That was five hundred dollars lower for each truck than what he’d considered his fire sale prices. “I’m surprised they haven’t sold yet. The paper comes out on Thursdays.” 

“We had a few calls,” Corliss admitted. “I told Marge to say you’d contact them on Monday. Unless she’s made one of her usual mistakes, she’s put the list on your desk.” 

“I just sold the Ram.” He gestured to Ennis, who was standing hip-cocked next to him, his head down, his hands where they most always got, in his pockets. “Corliss Hamilton, meet Ennis Del Mar.” 

Ennis made no move to extend a hand, only lifted his head an inch, nodded, and gave a sound that could’ve meant anything at all.

Corliss said, “Pleased to meet you. How will you be paying?”

Ennis cleared his throat. “I’ll write a check.” 

“Ennis is a friend of mine. He’s good for it.”

“Jack, I thought you knew,” Corliss said like he was instructing a child. “It’s not a good idea to do business with friends or to give them any kind of a deal. If that check bounces, you’re liable for it. No offense to you, Mister Del Mar.” 

Ennis grunted. 

“I want you to get cash or a bank check for the Silverado, you hear, Jack?”

“Nobody carries more than four thousand dollars with them, Corliss. If that’s how they pay, I’m not the one responsible for taking it to the bank.” 

For a second Hamilton paused, like he was thinking of something else. “Of course. I know that. It’s just another option. A bank draft is safest.” He turned back to his office, then said as he was walking away, “Make sure the paperwork’s filled out properly for the title transfer. If you don’t know how to do it, I’ll review it when you’re done.” Another few steps and the door closed behind him. 

“Jesus Christ,” Jack swore under his breath. 

“Is that dickhead always like that?” Ennis asked quietly, finally showing eyes full of fury. “I want to knock him on his ass.” 

“You and the rest of the guys who work here. Except Andy, I guess,” Jack said wearily. “He’s too decent to contemplate violence.”

“You don’t have to put up with this shit.” 

“I stay out of his way, mostly.” 

“He’d better stay out of my way, or—”

“Or you’ll what? Get me fired? Let’s not make a habit of doing that to each other. Forget it, Ennis.”

“I didn’t know—”

“Don’t be making more of this than it is. I’m used to this kind of crap, you know that. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Ennis seemed to be really mad, but that didn’t help Jack past his embarrassment. Because after all, there was a point to what Corliss had said. Jack hadn’t realized when he’d said _sell the trucks soon,_ he’d meant right away. 

“You’re better than that guy, and he’s got no right to be treating you—”

“Like shit? We sure got plenty of it around here, so what he dishes out just blends in with the rest of it.”

Ennis looked at him for another second or two, eyebrows lowered, and then his face smoothed out into being reluctantly amused. “Twist, you need to put out a bulletin calling for your sense of humor, cause what you got ain’t it.” 

“I think your jokes stink too. Come on, let’s go and get that truck transferred to your name.” 

Ennis followed him around the counter to the desk and put his hat on his knee as he sat down across from Jack. It took Jack a while to find the original title, since it had been taken out of the file where he kept all the equipment information. For a few minutes he wondered if it might be in Corliss’s office. He sure as hell didn’t want to go in there asking. But then he found the two truck titles on his desk in the “In” box, paper-clipped to the messages that Marge had taken over the phone. 

“Sorry for the hold-up,” he said to Ennis, and he settled down to doing the temporary transfer, the bill of sale, and the odometer disclosure form. As his pen moved across paper, the only sounds that could be heard were the two of them breathing, not looking at each other, and the rain pounding on metal. A roll of thunder every now and then. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ennis’s hands clenched in his lap. 

He wished Ennis would say something. He wasn’t used to appearing in a bad light in front of him. In years past, he’d lied to prevent it. He hadn’t told Ennis any of the details of his run-ins with L.D. He kept those to himself and ranted instead in general about the old goat. Until a couple of months ago, he hadn’t told Ennis of being thrown out of Aguirre’s trailer that time when he’d gone hat in hand looking for a job. He had hated it when Aguirre had said _got no job for you._ Hated it. What the hell was he, anyway? A man down on his luck, begging for work, needing to see that sheep-herding tall drink of water he’d thought on every day while taking every sort of crap from his daddy. 

He hadn’t told Ennis of the time he’d tried to explain to one of Bobby’s teachers that they really needed to get a tutor for Bobby, because Jack couldn’t help with any of the pre-algebra—it was like reading ancient Egyptian to him—and she’d sat down and given him a lesson in the basics, right there in front of the parents waiting to talk to her on Meet the Teacher night. It had only been one of the most embarrassing moments of Jack’s life. 

For sure he hadn’t told Ennis about the time he and Lureen had been in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It had been her idea, a little vacation, about five years ago, just about the time he’d started thinking seriously that the day he dreaded was coming, when he and Ennis would have ridden this thing between them as far as it would go. He began to see their parting coming closer, and for some reason in Hot Springs it was all he could think about. Lureen hadn’t ever been more annoying. He could hardly stand to hear her put two words together. Her voice was driving him crazy, and all she wanted was one of those hot baths at the spa and not his company, after all. So he’d gone out, telling her he was taking a walk, and in the middle of the afternoon picked up some guy at a bar, went back to his room, a nice place at the Arlington hotel with a big four poster brass bed, and prepared to get screwed, because maybe it would force sanity on him. He’d got screwed, all right, but he’d never managed to get a hard-on, the first time that’d happened to him and he was only thirty-five. The guy from Milwaukee—his name was Don, although probably not, because Jack had told him his own name was Phil—he’d laughed. Called him little boy. Had sucked his limp dick with no results, and Jack had been near tears, wanting…. Staring at the hotel ceiling wanting all the things he didn’t have. 

He’d barged out of there before he was even zipped up, surprised a maid with towels, spent the whole evening out drinking, and staggered back to Lureen at three-thirty a.m. She’d never even said a word. Not one goddamned word. 

Nope, hadn’t told Ennis about that.

He stole a look. Ennis was sitting back in the chair, staring out the window that showed the drops of rain running down the glass. He looked thoughtful. Jack didn’t know what he was thinking, though. 

A minute later, Ennis signed on the dotted line, and Jack went over to the lockbox so he could give him the spare set of keys. When he offered them across the desk, he remembered how he’d held the spares to Lureen’s car and she’d held them to his truck, but him and Ennis, they were still figuring out what was his, his, and theirs. 

Once Ennis took the keys in hand, what Jack had come to Tulip Feedlot to do was done. Except now he had to prove—to somebody, he wasn’t sure if it was him or Ennis or Corliss—that he wasn’t any imbecile. So he had Ennis wait while he checked the driving logs from the week before. Because this was the week he was determined to find out what was going on with the Jeep, and now, while Corliss was in the office alone, might be a good time to bring something like this to his attention. Jack frowned as he looked down at where the figures were written. Twelve miles officially for the Jeep. Probably been taken back and forth to Cimarron for lunch a couple of times. 

“Drive me back to where the trucks are parked, will you?”

They walked together outside, climbed into the white Dodge, and Ennis drove Jack down the front access road. He stopped right next to Jack’s Ford. 

“I reckon I’ll stay here a while. I’ve got something I need to take care of.”

“All right. Makes sense, since I ain’t gonna be around neither.” Ennis was staring straight out the windshield. “I’ll get groceries after I stop off at the Texaco. Anything you want in particular?”

Jack shrugged. “The usual stuff.” He opened the door and slid out into the rain. 

“Hey, Jack.”

He turned and stuck his head back inside. “What, Ennis? For God’s sakes, it’s raining.” 

“Wanted to say, dealing with that asshole ain’t all bad. He saved me five hundred bucks. Good for Junior.”

“Good for you too. I’ll see you tonight.”

Ennis put the truck in gear. “You’re a better businessman than that Hamilton guy. You should be the one running this place.”

The rain was warm on Jack’s shoulders as he watched Ennis drive away. What he’d prefer to do was jump in his truck and go straight home. Watch some TV, maybe read a magazine, then when Ennis got back pull him into bed, let his dick get hard under Ennis’s sweet lips, not some stranger’s from up north he’d never see again, and then when they were finished, hot and sweaty with their wet cooling between them, he’d hold Ennis close, the way strong-minded Ennis had always let him do, even up on Brokeback. They could listen to the rain falling. 

Except that Ennis would likely fall asleep, the way he usually did. Jack sighed. Life sure wasn’t always the way he wanted it to be. 

The Jeep, parked right next to the new red Silverado, had an odometer that showed it’d been driven an extra seventy-two miles in the week that Jack had been gone. A sixty mile difference that he doubted was any honest mistake. What the hell was going on? He’d known about this for the past month. At first he’d thought it was some problem with him and the way he was tallying numbers, or maybe due to his not knowing the feedlot business the way most every other employee there did. If he didn’t bring this to damn Corliss’s attention, he really would be an imbecile, and his boss would have every right to come down hard on him. 

“Shit.” The last thing he wanted to do was knock on Hamilton’s door. 

He drove the block and a half back to the office and had to run for cover through another cloudburst, slipping and sliding on the mud and cursing a blue streak as he finally got inside and under cover. 

Corliss was standing right there at the counter with a frown. “I don’t hire men who take the Lord’s name in vain, Jack, just like I don’t hire men who can’t get the job done.”

Jack ran his fingers down his sleeves to get the drops of rain off his shirt. “Sorry, Corliss. Didn’t realize you’d be listening in.”

“It doesn’t matter what I hear, Jack, it’s what you say to the Lord that matters.” 

“I’m not exactly a church-going man.”

“Fortunately for you, your qualifications, and the lack of other experienced applicants, overcame that objection when it came to hiring you. Did you get finished with Mister Del Mar?” 

“Sure did. I’ve got talk to you about something. There’s a problem with the Jeep.” 

“What kind of problem?”

“You know how everybody’s supposed to log in and out when they use a vehicle?” Corliss nodded. “The logs and the Jeep’s mileage don’t match. Somebody’s taking it out without—”

“It’s me,” Hamilton said. 

“You?” 

“I don’t suppose you’ll necessarily understand, but it’s church work.”

“But I’ve caught mileage put on other days besides Sundays, and—”

“Jack, you understand that the church has a mission over and above what we give to Jesus Christ in worship on Sundays. We’re told to help the poor, the downtrodden. My church is involved in a project to help some other Christians from a church elsewhere. The area where they live has been devastated by a storm; half their homes are unlivable. So we’re transporting a few of the men from time to time, giving them temporary jobs when we can, but primarily taking them where they’ll find permanent work.”

Jack stared at him, at his calm-as-could-be face, the square jaw and heavy eyebrows and gray eyes not looking any different than when he was chewing somebody out. It boggled his mind, thinking of hardass Corliss Hamilton as an angel of mercy. This was the guy Jack had heard ripping Andy up and down because he’d forgotten to tell Corliss about a package that had arrived. Johnny Morris, the head cowboy, had resorted to stammers when Corliss pointed out the sheer stupidity of having his men move stock into the wrong pen. And when Marge had talked about seeing a rerun of the TV show _Soap,_ how her family had laughed at the gay son, Corliss had quoted chapter and verse from Leviticus with the prohibition against men sleeping with other men, told her to beware the entrapments of modern prime time entertainment, and predicted fiery punishment for homosexuals and those who supported them in any way, her family in particular.

Nope, it was next to impossible for him to see Corliss as an angel, when he’d be likely to gather firewood to burn Jack at the stake if he knew the truth. 

Corliss was still talking. “I’ve been driving a few of the men we can help to Raton and elseqhere the last few weeks, and I didn’t think that the investors would mind me using a feedlot vehicle to do the Lord’s work.”

“You should have told me. I’ve been wondering about that extra mileage.” 

Corliss looked at him in that way he had that made a person feel small. “If you’d had any concerns at all, why didn’t you come straight to me with them? I would have told you the truth. But I didn’t mention it because I thought you understood that as manager of this operation, there are certain privileges….”

“I….” 

_I get it. You’re cheating the investors and assumed I’d go along with it because you’re the boss._

_And you’re right. I’m not the one with the power here._

“…understand.” He figured he’d go all the way, since he was balancing on the edge anyway. “I suppose those guys I saw out with Eduardo are some of those you’re helping?”

“That’s right. Most of the time we can refer them on immediately to a better situation, but occasionally a few will be here while we make other arrangements. It doesn’t happen often; I think it’s the first time since you signed on. Sharp of you to have noticed. They will be gone in a day or two.”

Jack nodded, although his thoughts were whirling. Could this have something to do with the conflict down in Central America? El Salvador, Nicaragua? He’d heard about the movement of churches in the U.S. to help refugees from those countries, people who were running from the violence.

He looked at Corliss with reluctant respect. The U.S. government wasn’t happy with what the churches were doing. Corliss with his straight and narrow views hadn’t struck him as the sort of man to go against the law.

“Do you have any questions now, Jack?” 

It was doubtful that Corliss was interested in answering any; Jack knew when he’d gone as far as he could. He put his hat back on. “I guess I understand what’s going on now. I’ll be headed home then. See you on Monday.”

Hamilton nodded. “See you then.” 

*****

As Jack drove back to Eagle Nest, he couldn’t get his thoughts off what Corliss had told him. Talk about having one view of a person and then having it turned upside down. Thinking well on Corliss didn’t set well with Jack; he wanted to not like him. 

Jack had always thought of himself as being outside the step of things. Being gay didn’t do much for making a man feel part of the society around him. Much as he talked to Ennis about living up to who he was, Jack had to admit he lived with constant caution, always checking to see the reaction to him and his ways. He remembered well the time he’d been jumped by the cowboys outside the bar when he was rodeoing and never wanted that to happen again. Ennis might think he lived wild, not smart, but Jack didn’t believe that was true. He knew where the boundary lines were, or at least he was always looking for them, and his new intention, formed little more than a year ago, was to walk as close to those lines as he could. Push them only now and then, when he judged it safe. 

Now knowing that Corliss was walking his own line, stepping over it, made him too much like Jack thought he was himself. How the hell could he feel anything in common with that man? A gay-hating, Bible-spouting, employee-lowering man? Shit. 

He stopped at the Allsups store for a six pack; although he was sure Ennis would bring beer with the groceries, they couldn’t ever have too much and would drink it eventually. The house was quiet when he got home. The beer went into the refrigerator, he grabbed the last one standing alone on the top shelf, and then he went straight to the stack of magazines they kept on a table in the back room. 

Lureen had favored _Southern Living_ and _Reader’s Digest_ and even for a while _Fortune._ He had a feud going with Ennis between _Time,_ which was the magazine that Jack had put down money for, and _U.S. News and World Report,_ which Ennis seemed to consider the authority for all things happening everywhere. Jack had been surprised when it started arriving in their mail, but he didn’t say much about it. Ennis had just started being able to read print easily when he finally bought glasses last December, and Jack didn’t want to say anything to discourage him. 

They generally kept back issues until the pile got so high it spilled over onto the floor, and then one of them would get disgusted and toss most of them in the trash. The stack was a good five inches at the moment, so what he was looking for was sure to be there somewhere. 

He found it in the July 9 issue of _Time._ What the churches were doing was called Sanctuary. A couple of weeks ago some young woman accused of aiding illegal immigrants had gone before a court in Texas, and she faced real jail time if the jury decided she’d gone against the law. Fifteen years. 

Jack let the magazine drop down to the table and rubbed his chin. Damn. This was serious stuff. He knew about what was going on at the feedlot now, and that made him a party to the crime. Though not in the middle of it. He was too far off to the side, he guessed, to catch the eye of any Fed investigating. 

But…. He remembered the way Corliss had asked if he had any more questions. Silky smooth, like the man was most of the time. Seemed it might be a worse situation to have Corliss knowing he was aware of what was going on than any cop. What about the other men who worked there, Marge in the office? Did all of them know? 

Probably not, he decided. But whoever did were keeping their mouths shut, and he would do the same. But—

The phone ringing interrupted his thoughts. With the vague idea that it was likely Gary, he went over to the little table next to Ennis’s chair and stood there to lift the receiver. 

“Hello?”

He expected to hear Gary’s laugh in return, and when Jack didn’t he frowned. There was dead silence and then a little hitch of breath. No voice. 

“Hello? Who’s there?”

“Is this…. ‘Scuse me, I didn’t mean…. Is this Mister Twist?”

The voice of a young woman sounded on the other end of the line, and Jack was pretty sure who it was. This was a day for surprises.

“This is Jack Twist. Is this…. Is this Junior? Del Mar?”

“Yes, sir. I was hoping to talk to my daddy. Is he there, please?”

Jack sat down gently in the ratty old chair, as if Junior were a skittish horse—just like her father—and might be frightened away by sudden movement. 

“I’m sorry, but your dad isn’t here right now. He’s gone to the grocery store.”

“Oh. I’m sorry I missed him.”

She sounded like he’d imagined she might. Her voice was low for a woman’s, soft and slow-cadenced, with a rich purr that seemed a lot like Ennis in female form. Jack was charmed. “He should be back in an hour or so. You want me to give him a message?”

“You don’t have to—”

“He’ll be disappointed he missed you. He always likes talking to you.”

“He does? I mean…. Sorry. I should go.”

“Don’t go without giving me a message for your dad. Can I tell him why you called?” He didn’t know if she trusted him that far, although Alma Junior seemed to be at least partly accepting of her dad’s decision to set up household with another man. From what Ennis told him, anyway. 

The love Ennis had for Junior and Jenny had sometimes been so obvious it had been painful, especially in the early years when that devotion had been taken for granted. Those girls’d had no idea how they were contributing to their dad’s heartache. It had been the same when they were teenagers, leaving him be, not doing a thing to get Ennis out of his shell, even though those were the days when Jack had been getting more and more worried about him. At the same time he’d been able to see their own end approaching like a storm front, not capable of being stopped…. 

He’d tried not to resent the girls, but it had been hard not to. Since Junior had graduated from high school more than a year ago, it was like she’d woken up. When Ennis was still in Wyoming, before Jack had nearly killed him by walking away, she’d been there for her daddy with Saturday dinners brought to him and shared, and Jack knew how much that had meant to his lonely Ennis. 

Nowadays it was a pleasure to see Ennis after he’d phoned to Wyoming, like a man with a candle lit inside him. There was no doubting he cared for Jenny, but there was something special between him and Junior, and it was her he most often spent ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes on the phone with. The fact that this time Junior had called New Mexico instead of the other way around, as was usual—that was an important step. Much as Jack appreciated this chance to talk to her, he sure did wish Ennis had been here. 

Junior was saying, “I just called to let him know…. It ain’t important.” 

“Should I tell him to call you when he gets home?” 

“Like I said, it ain’t important. Just something that happened at work.”

“Did you have another fight with your boss?”

“He told you about that?”

“I guess so.” 

“Daddy doesn’t talk much in general.” 

“I know. But he does talk to me.” Lately, Ennis hollered at the top of his lungs with words spouting out like a waterfall, but Jack wasn’t going to tell her that. 

“I’m….” She took a deep breath he could hear clearly over the line. “I’d like to say, Mister Twist, that I appreciate that Daddy has somebody to talk to.” 

He hadn’t expected any such words from her, and his opinion of the kind of person Alma Junior was rose high. “Thank you for saying that.”

“I’ve been wondering if I’d have the chance to talk to you, to get the chance to put a voice to your face.”

“My face?”

“Daddy showed me your picture when he was here in March.”

A flush of pleasure heated him. “He did?” He couldn’t keep the delight from his words. 

“Uh-huh. It was a little black and white photo he had in his wallet.” 

He’d been in Lureen’s wallet for years, their wedding picture getting faded, and both of them getting further and further away from what they’d hoped for back then. He’d never carried anything but cash and credit cards in his. But his shy Ennis, so worried about what others thought of him, struggling to be who he was and not really knowing half the time what that meant, needing over all that to have Jack’s picture with him…. 

Once Ennis had told him that Jack went with him when he traveled back to Wyoming. Guess here was proof. An image of Ennis’s and Junior’s heads bent together came to him, Ennis opening up his wallet, Junior’s no-doubt polite appreciation of a wildly smiling Jack Twist. 

Jack cleared his throat. “He keeps a picture of you and Jenny on the nightstand.” 

The minute he said it—meant to be a kindness, so Junior knew how she was regarded—he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t mean to flaunt his relationship with her dad in that way. What was he making reference to their bedroom for? 

But Junior didn’t seem to take any heed. “Does he?” she asked, her voice sounding wistful. 

“He does. From your graduation. You’re in your cap and gown, and Jenny’s looking pretty next to you in a red dress.” 

“I know that picture. Does he have that one of me and him at graduation? I’ve got that on my wall.”

“I don’t think so. There’s one he showed me of you and him at some carnival, but you’re about ten years old there.” 

“Oh, that one, when I’m on the merry-go-round. That is old. I wonder if he’d like me to make a copy of what I’ve got here. I’d be pleased to think he had a picture of me and him together.”

“I’d say that would be good. I know he misses you.” 

“I miss him, too, Mister Twist. I’m real sorry he’s moved down to Texas, I mean, to New Mexico.” She sounded flustered now. “Except I know he’s happier now.” 

“You think so?” 

“I expect you’d know better than me.” 

“I’d like to think he’s doing good, but I’ve got a reason to see that.” 

“It’s hard to tell for me, not seeing him in person. I wish he’d come visit again. He was only here a day when Jenny graduated.”

Ennis wouldn’t be going anywhere he didn’t have to, not with him being so dead-set on moving forward with this horse-training business of his, and taking his responsibilities at the Cross B Ranch so seriously. But he couldn’t say that to Junior, so instead he settled for, “I expect you’ll be going to your cooking school soon. You’ll have lots to tell him about then.” 

There was a pause he noticed. “I guess Daddy does tell you things. I can hardly believe it.” 

“We’ve known each other a long time.” Then he rushed on. “He’s turned into a pretty good cook.”

“You mean doing more than opening up cans?”

“I do. He has this way of putting together pork chops and cranberry sauce and mustard. It’s real good.” 

“I used to make him that.” 

“He must have watched you do it, then.” 

“Can you cook, Mister Twist?”

“Okay, I guess. Nothing to what you can do, I imagine, and you’ll get even better with these classes you’ll be taking. But I wonder if I can ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“You think you could call me Jack?” 

“I… I suppose so. I guess it would please my dad for me to do that.”

He waited for her to say that he could call her Junior, but she didn’t. 

“I don’t think he’d mind. You can ask him when he calls you. I’m sure he’ll get back to you soon.” 

“He’s been real good phoning.” 

“Right, once a week.” A lot better than what he’d done for Bobby, but he supposed it was different, having a son who didn’t care all that much if he heard from Jack or not. Girls were another story. 

Much as Ennis might have wanted sons, it was hard for Jack to imagine him that way. He seemed suited to girls. He knew how to talk to them, and they’d always brought out the softness in him, the giving and caring that would have otherwise been buried so deep it probably would have been lost forever. It seemed to Jack, all of a sudden, that he owed a debt to Junior and Jenny, for keeping Ennis the man he was. 

Maybe someday he’d be able to say something like that to this young woman who was talking so politely to him. Junior was a little bit shy but a whole lot determined. He imagined that she’d been preparing for when she’d talk to him for the first time, just like it had entered his thoughts that sooner or later it would happen. 

There was silence between them. He wondered what she was thinking, if he’d maybe passed whatever test she’d had in her mind, if her expectations had been filled in a good or a bad way. Either way, he was the man her father shared a bed with now, the man Ennis had changed his life for. Jack was proud of that, proud that he’d pulled Ennis somehow out of the pit he’d been sunk in, and that the ties between them had been stronger than despair and stubbornness and what the world told them to do. 

“Don’t you worry about your daddy,” he said suddenly. “He’s doing fine.” 

“I don’t worry about him,” she said in that low, musical voice of hers. “Not too much, anyway. I want him to be happy.” 

“That makes two of us.”

“Will you tell him that I called?”

“I’ll do that.” 

“I guess I’ll go then. Good-bye.” 

“Good-bye.” 

He put down the receiver and was conscious she hadn’t called him Jack, but even so this first talk with Alma Del Mar Junior hadn’t gone too bad. 

*****

 

At ten-thirty p.m. Jack went through the house closing it down. He shut the windows that they’d kept open in the evening to catch the rain-freshened breeze, put out the lights, and looked outside to make sure the yard lights were on. Then he locked the side door and double-checked the front door.

Ennis had come home in early evening, with fried chicken he’d got already cooked from the grocery store and enough food to last them for a while. Before shopping, he’d paid to use the Texaco bay for an oil change he’d done himself on the truck. As a consequence, his hands and arms were none too clean, so Ennis headed for the shower while Jack unpacked and put away. 

Over drumsticks and wings, the only kind of chicken Ennis cared for, he’d told about the phone call but didn’t get much reaction one way or the other. Ennis went straight to the phone afterward, and Jack was pleased that he spent quite a while talking. Mostly listening. He joined Jack in the back room afterward with the relaxed sort of walk, the looseness to his shoulders that Jack knew how to read well. Ennis did love his daughters.

But right after that the phone had gone off again. 

“You know it’s that asshole,” Ennis had grumbled. “You go get it.”

By the time Jack had heard all he cared to from Gary about Jeffrey Montgomery the Third and managed to escape, he came back to find Ennis stretched out on his back on the sofa, his hands folded on his stomach, breathing deeply with his eyes closed. Jack watched the end of _Love Boat_ and then _Fantasy Island_ on his own for a while, but when Ennis started snoring at eight-thirty, he nudged him with his bare foot from where he was sitting in the chair. 

“Go to bed, sleepy man.”

Ennis kissed him as he went by like he was still half-dreaming, but Jack didn’t object. Besides, he had a lot on his mind. 

Now he pissed, washed up, undressed in the bathroom, and went through the living room to their bedroom in the dark, in his boxers. They always kept the door open; there wasn’t anybody around to hear them. Sometimes Jack wondered if Ennis liked it that way because of his nightmares, that it was some comfort to have a physical escape route when he woke up. 

He crawled into bed, trying to be quiet, but right away Ennis stirred. 

“That you?”

“Nobody else.”

Ennis was on his side facing away. He wriggled back until he was butted up against Jack’s front, where Jack was glad to put an arm around his waist. He let hair tickle his nose and breathed in the Ennis-scent he used to dream about, some nights trying to sleep next to Lureen. He closed his eyes and swallowed against his suddenly tight throat.

 _Don’t let me ever wake up from this_ he asked, casting the thought straight from his heart to whoever understood him, who hadn’t caused Corliss to hate him and other men like him. _Don’t ever let me wake up without him in my life._

They lay there in silence for a while, but he was pretty sure Ennis was still awake. After a while, Ennis asked, “I miss anything on TV?” 

“Eddie Murphy on a Saturday Night Live rerun. I didn’t stay to see it all, though. Ennis?” 

“Yeah?” 

If there’d been anybody outside the door listening, they would have barely heard this conversation, meant just for the two of them. 

“If I was to look through your wallet, what would I find?”

“Less cash than what was there this morning. You owe me forty bucks for the groceries.” 

“Okay. Junior says you have that picture of me in your wallet, the one I made in Fort Worth, remember?”

Ennis squirmed against him, and Jack wondered if he would roll away. But after a while he settled again. Maybe he even pressed closer. 

“So?”

“So it doesn’t seem fair that you have a picture of me when I don’t have one of you.” 

“Jesus, Jack, what do you want a picture of my ugly face for?” 

Jack ran his hand, fingers spread wide to touch as much skin as possible, from waist up to chest. “You know why,” he whispered. “I want a picture.”

“Huh. You want Morgan to paint me so you can hang me like a trophy buck in the back room. That won’t fit in your pocket.” 

“You aren’t a trophy buck, you’re a horse so wild nobody has ever tamed you.” 

“Oh, yeah? So how come here I am?” 

“Because I am the most patient man God ever created. At least where you’re concerned.” 

Ennis snorted laughter and a second later put his hand over Jack’s. “Good thing for me.” 

“Yep.”

“Speaking of horses, I’ll be up early tomorrow to try to beat the heat. I’m taking Delilah up the valley to a trail she hasn’t seen before. I won’t be back until afternoon.”

Patience. How good it was that Ennis’s life had opened up, that he wanted to accomplish things. 

Disappointment. How sad it was that Ennis didn’t understand how much Jack just wanted his time. Or how sad that Ennis wasn’t willing to give it.

A minute passed. Jack thought of their land, leased from a couple who had inherited it from an uncle who’d passed away. He thought of the stars overhead, drowned out by the three-quarter moon’s glow, and of Jigger and Delilah grazing on the sweet grass of the pasture in the quiet of the night. He wondered how many vultures were roosting in the dead tree and if they were hungry, looming over wherever Ennis had buried the coyote. His thoughts raced across the distance from Eagle Nest to Cimarron and touched on the men Corliss was harboring. Did they have enough to eat? And if they really were from Guatemala or some other country like it, what had they seen that had caused them to leave everything they knew? 

“Jack?”

“Hmmm?”

“You reckon Morgan was serious about wanting a horse for his wife?”

“I think so.”

“I better call him tomorrow then, so I know what to look for at the auction Monday. You got his number, right?”

“It’s in that book I use.” 

He could feel heartbeats against the palm of his hand, the rise and fall of breathing. 

“I remember…. I remember when Alma and me used to have a book with numbers in it.” 

Jack heard so much unstated sorrow over what hadn’t ever really been. There’d mainly been just the shape of it for Ennis and Alma, and wanting it. Then the shock of all those dreams gone, and the long struggle to live without the shield of wife and family. 

“Sometimes,” Jack whispered with his cheek pressed against Ennis’s neck, “sometimes I get sad thinking of all the years we weren’t together. All the things that happened to you that I don’t know about, and all the things about me you don’t know.” 

The hand over his pressed down. “It’s not important.”

“To me it is. Twenty years we lived apart.” 

“Is there some rule about what we got to share? Spend an afternoon filling you in on how miserable I was?” The one pillow they were resting on moved as Ennis shook his head. “I don’t want to put any of that on you. What’s important is what’s to be.” 

“I know. Still…. Remember that time, about five years ago, we met at Granger Pass? You hadn’t been there even five minutes before I had you bent over the seat of the truck.” 

“Yeah. That surprised me. Usually you wanted me to do you first. Sometimes you never even got around to that the whole week.” 

“I had to show myself I still could, because the last time before then that I’d tried… I couldn’t get it up.” 

Silence from Ennis. For sure he knew Jack wasn’t talking about Lureen. Then there was a big sigh filled with sorrow.

“Shit. Wish you hadn’t—”

“I’m a son of a bitch, Ennis.”

“That you are, Jack Twist.” 

“Tell me something.”

“What?”

“Anything. Just… tell me.”

For a while Jack thought he wouldn’t, that the few words Ennis had for the night were already used up. But then he felt Ennis pull away, not to turn over and go to sleep, but to flip himself so he was facing Jack. In the dark, with the moon shining in on the other side of the house, Jack couldn’t see him, but he felt hands on his face, and he welcomed lips on his. Soft, undemanding, not asking for anything more than just what was, a kiss. 

“You remember that picture last night at the art gallery I liked?”

“I do,” Jack murmured. 

“Back in Amarillo, when I first found you, you didn’t want to give up your Friday date with the coach. That first one, before we went to the basketball game.” 

“Okay.”

“I drove out on I-40 that Friday night, then turned north and found a cattle pasture. Sat out there smoking a cigar, thinking on you being with somebody I didn’t even have a name for. A couple heifers came out of the dark and kept me company. That was a bad night, Jack.”

“Fuck. I’m so—”

“But it showed me something.” 

“What?” _Did it show you I didn’t believe you’d ever change? That Gary was a crutch I was afraid to get rid of? That Jack Twist knew how to stab the knife and hurt you just as badly as you’d hurt me?_ Looking back on how confused he’d been, how angry he’d been, how he’d fought so hard against letting Ennis back into his heart, he didn’t know how they’d got past those first few weeks in Texas. 

Ennis’s hand wandered from his face, to his shoulder, and then down to his side, where he was gripped strong. “It showed me that I could do it. That I wanted you that bad. Before then, it’d just been words, to you and myself. See that?”

Jack didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. 

“I think that’s what Morgan meant it to say. Being lonely, but not finding strength somewhere.” 

“Even though it was a hard time for you.” 

“I put you through plenty of hard times, bud, and I know it.”

“Not any more. No more bad nights.”

“I doubt that. You’re too ornery not to give me more bad nights. Like last night. But I’m prepared for them.”

“You wrote the book on ornery, and you’re the one who gave me the bad time last night.” 

“We sound like two kids fighting in the schoolyard.” 

Jack sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you.” 

“Me, neither. Just want to sleep. Here, you roll over.” 

That was okay with him. Just feeling Ennis’s arm come around him relaxed him that last bit, and he felt his eyes closing. He’d sleep tonight. 

“You know that auction on Monday?”

“Hmmm.”

“How about if you come with? We can meet there after work. If you don’t have anything else to do.” 

His eyes flew open, and he wondered that a man could feel two such opposite emotions at the same time. There wasn’t anything that would stop Ennis from what he felt he had to do, but at least Jack was being fit into the schedule. That was something.

Ennis went on, “But you’ve got to promise not to murder any of my horses.” 

“You Sweet Patootie, you.” 

“Hey, now!”

“Dear Heart. Ain’t that nice of you.” 

“How’d you like it if I called you one of those names?”

He settled Ennis’s arm more firmly around him. “I wouldn’t mind.” 

“It ain’t gonna happen.”

“Go to sleep, Ennis.” 

He closed his eyes to the night again and surrendered to soft breathing, the warmth where they touched, the sensation of slowly falling to sleep. 

Letting go, not thinking of how they weren’t just two guys who fucked, not thinking that he and Ennis didn’t have common ground on everything or of damn Corliss Hamilton and his hurting words, thinking instead how Ennis was driven distracted because of how much Jack was on his mind all the time and how Jack was driven distracted because of how much he needed Ennis, needing to grab everything at once, maybe, because of how much he feared deep inside it would disappear, feeling Ennis’s lips against his hair nuzzling, falling, falling, falling to sleep and flying, flying, flying so high, because this was real, this was happening. It would be all right.

 _It’s all right. It’s all right_ came a whisper in the night, and he didn’t know if he was dreaming, Ennis was whispering, or he’d heard an answer to a prayer. 

 

*****


	5. Shooting True

Drowsing in the early Sunday morning, watching the minutes flip over on the nightstand clock next to the picture of Junior and Jenny, telling himself to get up and start the day, not wanting to, not yet, wanting to stay in their warm bed, comfort, breathing besides his own, Jack’s steady inhale and exhale in this house they were sharing…. 

_BJ turning her face from him, covering it with a dishtowel, Rocky smacking her on the ass right in front of him, then laughing at him with cruelty and saying This is how a real man behaves, and you aren’t a real man, Del Mar. The only place for faggots is on TV shows. I won’t expose my boys to your perversions. You’ll be easy to replace on the ranch, so take your queer ways with you, and while you’re at it I want my money back for the horses too. I don’t give a damn that you won’t be able to afford that house where you live with your queer lover anymore. Go find yourself some shit job, it’s all you’re good for._

Ennis’s eyes popped open, and for a wild, spinning instant didn’t know where he was. He startled up onto his elbows, expecting…. 

In bed. With Jack. Sweating across his forehead and his bare chest cause somehow the sheet and summer blanket—that Jack liked on their bed even in mid-July—had got over him when he fell back to sleep. 

Ennis pushed the covers down and then pulled the sheet back to wipe his sweat away. Quietly as he could, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, so he didn’t wake Jack. He decided he’d better not even rub his hand over his face, as that would jiggle the mattress, and he didn’t want to talk right then. 

Even so, when he got to the door he turned around to see his man sleeping.  
The covers were pulled up like it was Thanksgiving and not just past the Fourth of July. Dark hair against a white pillow, one hand splayed out on his chest, showing off those fine fingers of his. 

Ennis leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms, letting his breathing even out and some sense of calm come over him. That hadn’t really been a dream. It was just stupid imagining, letting his thoughts get away from him in that odd place where a man wasn’t awake but wasn’t asleep, either. He really was a fool to think such thoughts about the Buckminsters. Rocky might send him packing tomorrow and likely would, but he couldn’t see the man laughing like that, mocking. And no way would BJ ever cover her face with a dishtowel. It just wouldn’t happen. 

So maybe this was the dream, huh? That here he was with everything new, everything different, and nothing that he’d ever expected of his life. But this was good. The best dream he’d ever had, waking or sleeping, was living here with John Henry Twist Junior. 

Ennis shook his head. He didn’t think Jack really knew his feelings on the subject. The best goddamned dream. 

Fuck, but he didn’t want to wake up from it. 

*****

 

They were washing and waxing his new truck together on Sunday early evening.

Jack bent over with a brush in hand, giving a back tire rim the good scrubbing it needed.

Ennis worked at rubbing away the clouds Turtle Wax made on his hood, but the finish was resisting him. 

“Pass me that extra rag there, would you?” Jack called. 

Ennis threw it to him, and he caught it on the bristles of the brush. Jack smiled like he’d accomplished something.

Twenty-one years. 

Still liked that man’s smile. 

*****

 

Ennis turned into the drive of the Cross B Buckminster Quarter Horse Ranch twenty minutes earlier than he usually did. The sun was well up on what looked to be a world cleanwashed by the rain over the weekend, with the yellow and blue wildflowers in the front pasture holding their heads up high. He was determined to do the same. 

He parked his white Dodge Ram—that ran so good, better than any other truck he’d ever owned or thought he would own—under the tree he’d been using to catch the shade, in front of the house and the iron cut-outs of the family. He cut the ignition, the engine noise died, and he stayed where he was, hands on the wheel. Not thinking. Listening. The birds in the two big spruces were making their calls, claiming their territory, saying this was their home.

His eyes followed the flight of a sparrow from one tree to the telephone line that went to the house, where the bird stopped to sing a twittering song. This was the Buckminster’s home, not his. He had no place here except for what Rocky said. Ennis had no territory of his own. He had never owned a house, had never bought a new truck. All he had was that blue-eyed fella that he’d left back at the place they were renting together, the man set on believing the best when you would think the world would tell him otherwise. 

_Jack, the skin of his arms gleaming as the light from the fire found its way into the tent, Ennis couldn’t stop from looking up, looking down, then looking up again, couldn’t stop himself from walking forward hat in hand, wanting so bad so many things Jack singing at the top of his lungs and Jack fighting with the mare and Jack not settling for beans and God help him Jack surrounding his dick and heaving under him, he remembered it so clear even though he’d been drunk, and now Jack was making it plain it was Ennis’s decision to go forward or not, if Ennis to say: Show me. Hold me. Help me. Understand me._

_Jack taking his hat. Taking his lips. Taking Ennis in his arms and falling back, a long, long falling that started then but was still going on, his whole life, Ennis falling toward Jack and Jack saying that things would be all right._

Ennis swatted an early morning fly off the dashboard. Might as well get this done and over with. He opened up the door, got out, and then reached under the seat for his thermos of coffee, hoping that he’d be given the chance to drink it. He closed the door quietly as he could. Tag and Davey, they liked to sleep in, and Betty Jo let them. He wished he’d slept well the night before, but he’d kept waking and sleeping, waking and sleeping again, asking himself what was the worst thing that could happen. He asked in order to prepare himself, because he was gonna take it like a man, no matter how bad it was. 

Seemed like the walk to the stable took longer than usual. The sun’s rays were so bright, they seemed to have weight as they landed on his shoulders, and the air was heavy too, already hot and muggy, promising that the afternoon would be a lot worse. 

He walked through the open door, from sunlight to the dusty shade, and stopped when he heard sounds around the corner, down the short crosswalk between stalls. Somebody was there before him, when he was the one who usually got there first. He could have ignored whoever it was, cause there was things all over the ranch that needed his care and attention. Now that he was here, facing it, something powerful urged him to get the hell out of there. It would have been easy. He’d have another day of pretending it was all okay, no need to face sneers whether said out loud or not— _you don’t know how to be a man, do you?_ —or maybe see pity in eyes he’d come to respect— _poor fellow, nothing but a faggot._

Had hoped to avoid this. Why couldn’t a person just be left to be?

He stepped forward with a raw feeling of having no power at all that sat thick and hard in his throat. God knew, he didn’t want to go back to County Road 19 and tell his man he had no job, no future, no way to contribute equally right next to Jack. Maybe Jack would get tired of living with a man who couldn’t pull his own weight, go on back to Texas where the coach lived, and he’d take his smile with him…. 

It was Rocky there in the stable a good forty-five minutes before he usually showed up, down on one knee, slicing open a bag of feed supplement with his pocketknife. He looked up as Ennis walked closer. Damn Jack for forcing him into this. Ennis had to stand before this man who knew what he was and take whatever he had to say.

“’Morning.” Seemed Rocky had to work to get the word out. 

Ennis touched his hat and stood the way he usually did, shoulders kind of pulled in, weight shifted to the side, but eyeing Rocky to see which way he’d go. 

“’Morning.”

Rocky got to his feet and straightened, with the feed bag propped against his knees. He looked at Ennis directly, but then his eyes darted away, like there was something interesting over in the corner. “If you didn’t show, I was going to give you a call, see if you needed a lift.” 

Have him or one of the boys come out to the house, get themselves a chance to see what kind of debauchery was going on so close to their home? Ennis would walk to Taos in his bare feet before he let them look on Jack with judging eyes. That house was his and Jack’s, just theirs alone, and a powerful need to keep it that way rose up in him. 

“No need for that,” he said quietly. “I’ve got a new truck already.” 

“That was fast work. What did you get?” 

“Dodge Ram, three-quarter ton.” 

“Okay. Where’d you find it?”

“Over Cimarron way.” 

“Okay,” Rocky said again. When a man as tall as Rocky Buckminster swallowed, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed was noticeable. Ennis realized suddenly that Rocky wasn’t paying much attention to what he was saying. Ennis could have said he’d got the truck in Timbuktu and would have gotten the same response. “So, you’re….”

In the pause while Rocky searched for words, Ennis braced for what was coming. He wouldn’t lie, goddamn it, he wouldn’t. _I’ve been lucky in love, you bet, better than cards, but not the way you and anybody else can accept, so fuck you and this job—_

“…you’re okay after the accident? No aches and pains or whiplash? BJ was in an accident like that years ago, and she had neck problems for months afterward.” 

Ennis blinked. “Nope. I’m good.” 

“That’s fine,” Rocky said heartily. Too heartily, and Ennis felt the man’s discomfort like his own. “Well, there’s work to be done. Matt was up with the three-year-olds yesterday afternoon, and he said one of them has a swollen hock. The gray. I’d appreciate it if you looked at that.”

“Sure thing.” He would have done that anyway, as he checked the whole group over every day before he worked with a few. 

“The order from Albuquerque came on Saturday, so half of this feed needs to be taken up to the far pasture storage shed.”

Every Monday, he noted what had arrived over the weekend and had been doing so without any orders from Rocky for three months and more. It wasn’t something they needed to talk about. He looked at the man, standing with his long arms hanging loosely by his sides, shifting from foot to foot, and he wanted to tell Rocky that just cause he was queer didn’t mean he’d forgotten how to do his job. 

“I’ll do that. Anything else?” 

“Anything else?” Rocky repeated, and long seconds of silence stretched between them while they faced each other. Ennis took it, the man’s searching gaze and the look in his eyes that wasn’t sneering, that was for sure, and seemed to him it wasn’t pity either. More like… that he just didn’t understand what it was he was seeing.

 _Join the club, bossman. Jack and me, we don’t get it either, but this is the way it is._

Rocky shook his head. “No. Nothing more.” 

Rocky nodded to him, though Ennis had no idea what he meant to say that way. Ennis nodded back like he agreed, and Rocky’s face cleared. He leaned over to lift the feed bag.

“All right, then,” Rocky said briskly, like he was brushing his hands one against the other. “I’ll see you later.” 

Ennis didn’t move as he listened to the sound of footsteps scuff against the stable floor and then out the back in the direction of the breeding barn and paddocks. 

This was the best he could have hoped for. Silence. But it made his skin crawl. Where did he really stand? He felt like nothing was sure any more. 

A snorting sound came from behind him, and he turned to see Samson’s familiar head hung low over the half-door to his stall. The horse was eyeing him like he was his only friend.

Ennis went over to him without thinking, imagining the bay’s soft hide under his fingers even before he scratched under his black forelock, up in front of his ears, that he’d learned was a sweet spot the first day he’d owned Samson. Most horses had one or two such spots, where for some reason they wanted to be touched, to be soothed, where if they were at odds with the world, a man’s hand could help make things right. 

“How you doing, darling?” he mumbled, and rubbed some more. Samson blinked slow and lazy, like there wasn’t anything else important going on. 

After a while Ennis asked, about as loud as a gnat buzzing, “You heard all that?” He knew the horse had. Samson had probably been staring at his back the whole time. “What do you think is going on? You think BJ…. How about the kids?” Like he was answering, Samson butted his muzzle up against Ennis’s striped summer shirt, the way he’d started doing once he was filled out and healthy again. 

Nobody had wanted this horse. Not a soul at the auction but Ennis had been willing to put out more than the cost of hauling him to the dog meat grinders. But here he was, big eyes looking at Ennis like he couldn’t get enough of him, healthy and a good, steady mount. Ennis was proud of the work he’d done with this horse. 

“Hey, there,” Ennis said as he rocked back from the horse nuzzling him again. “I ain’t got nothing for you. Except for news that I’ll be back tomorrow.”

That was something, anyway. Ennis lifted his eyes, not inclined to move away from Samson’s trusting warmth, looking the way Rocky had gone. 

*****

 

Ennis worked all morning in the stable and the front part of the ranch, where the working horses and the youngest foals and their mothers were kept. A few hundred yards closer to the mountains were the breeding barn and the breeding stock, the broodmares that had already been bred and the weanlings that had been separated from them, and that was Rocky’s main concern. The ranch was long and narrow, so beyond those outbuildings and the fenced land dotted with the mares was a rise in the land. It went up into the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains and then leveled off again to the back fields where mainly the three-year-olds were pastured. This was the first year the Buckminsters was doing that, keeping the youngsters for training that Ennis was responsible for, experimenting with the horses and with him. Ennis made it a habit to be in the front, east part of the ranch before noon, and then he’d mount up and find his way to where it was a good twenty minute ride and more from the house. Generally he was back at the main stable by four, where he watched over the work of the boys and two of the part-time hands.

Time passed. Nobody came out to the stable to join him, and though that wasn’t too unusual, he wondered why. Maybe nothing was going on, but maybe something was. Could be he’d lost something he’d taken for granted, the easy ways of the boys and their mom when he’d come into their lives in April. This was the closest he’d been to a family for years. He went through the morning chores remembering that dinner they’d had and how BJ had put those burned meatballs on the table and smiled through it. He remembered Matt mucking out stalls cheerfully and telling Ennis about the kind of truck he wanted to buy someday, Tag riding up to the far pasture with a message from Rocky and two apples, then climbing up on some big rocks with Ennis to share the quiet while they took a break. It seemed he could remember how that apple had tasted. 

Around noon-time he figured he’d put the saddle on Samson, take his lunch with him, and head up to the three-year-olds. Horses he understood, better than he’d ever understood people. The solitude of the wind blowing through the mountains called to him. 

But a man had to piss somewhere, and especially under the circumstances he sure as hell was not gonna haul it out where he shouldn’t. He found his slow way to the house and the bathroom off the back porch that he generally used. When he came out, rubbing his hands on his jeans as he walked to the stableyard, the sun seemed awful bright, and he pulled his hat down low. 

“Ennis!” 

Ennis turned around and saw Betty Jo standing on the back porch, wearing jeans with a wide belt and an ordinary shirt that wasn’t too womanly. It was what she usually wore, and it wasn’t too kind to her dumpy figure. Davey was next to her, sucking his thumb. With the way Rocky and BJ operated, maybe here was his bad news, that a woman was gonna fire him. 

Reluctantly, he found his way back and stopped before the first step. He squinted up into her face. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

Betty Jo stepped down to the ground so she was on the same level as he was, taking Davey by the hand and bringing him with her. 

“I wanted to talk with you, but first, have you seen Tag?”

“No, he ain’t been around.”

She pursed her lips, the way Alma had done when she was annoyed. “Not the whole morning? Not even down with his horse?” 

“Sorry, I ain’t seen nobody but Rocky. You want me to go look—”

“No, don’t do that. He stayed over last night with one of his friends, but I thought he’d be home by now. He said he would be. It probably doesn’t mean…. I don’t want you to be bothered. I just wish he’d tell me when he changes his schedule. He used to be so good doing that.”

“I expect he’ll be back for his chores this afternoon. He’s a good boy.”

“Yes, well, sometimes. He’s seventeen now, though, and getting a little restless. I’m sure you know how that happens.”

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“I wanted to ask him to help me with…. Oh, well, it’s not important. But if you see him around, please let him know we’d like to talk with him.”

“I’ll do—”

Davey had been standing by his mom, but before Ennis could complete his thought, he broke away from her. He went over to Ennis—more like an awkward lunge, as he wasn’t always so smooth in his moving—and wrapped his little-boy-arms around Ennis’s leg, making some low sound when he did so. 

BJ looked as surprised as if it had started snowing in August. She held up one hand. 

“Listen,” she said. 

Ennis did. Davey took his thumb out of his mouth and said, clear as could be, “’Nis.” He hugged Ennis’s leg harder. 

“Oh, my,” Betty Jo said as she smiled down at her youngest son. “He’s saying your name.” 

Ennis didn’t know what to make of that. He put his hand on the boy’s head, meaning to just rub his hair, but instead he kept his fingers where they landed, resting there. 

“It’s not the first time he’s said it,” Betty Jo said. “Rocky and I were talking about you this weekend….” She looked down like she was embarrassed, another one of her occasions of talking too plainly, and Ennis thought grimly that he had some idea what that conversation must have been about. 

“Anyway, we were talking about you, and Davey heard us. He said your name a few times then. You know, he doesn’t talk much.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’m sure he has lots more words than he gives us, but he holds them in. We don’t really know what’s going on in that cute head of his.” 

Ennis was developing a fondness for the little guy, it was true, but at the moment he didn’t care about Davey and what he held back, he cared more about what BJ was holding back. She’d not called him over to say how cute her son was. He looked at her seriously. A lifetime of keeping his head down and his mouth shut tried to keep words locked away, but there wasn’t any use ignoring that what was gonna be, was gonna be, was there? Ennis surprised himself by forging ahead and asking, “Ma’am, you had something to say to me? About you and your husband talking?”

She returned his look the same way, not fooling. “Yes, I did have something to say. Two things. First, I wanted you to know that Frank won’t be in this afternoon. In fact, he’ll probably be gone for a week or two, I’m not sure.” 

Ennis frowned. That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear. “He won’t? Where is he?”

Betty Jo sighed. “I don’t know, he never says. He’s not very reliable, I’m sure you know that.” 

“You think he’s coming back?”

“I think so. He did the same thing this past winter. I wish he’d trust us enough to tell us where he’s going and how long he’ll be gone. It’s not like we wouldn’t understand.”

“So what do you want me to do? I could pick up his chores most days, but not—”

“Oh, no, I’m just letting you know so you won’t be worried when he doesn’t show up. And you don’t have to do Frank’s share of the work, you do enough on your own. We’ve got a friend who’ll be coming in. Well,” she laughed, “he’s an old family friend and the whole county’s too.” 

“He’ll fill in this week? What’s his name?”

“Floyd Aguilar.”

“He knows horses?”

“Oh, yes, he’s helped us out before. He does odd chores for people all around. He isn’t interested in a steady job, since he’s getting on in years. We pay him under the counter in cash so he can avoid taxes.” She looked like she realized she’d said too much again. “Don’t tell on us.” 

“I won’t.”

“He’ll be here around three, I think, and he’ll help out as long as we need him. So if you see him around, you’ll know he’s all right. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Ennis told her, but he wanted to lift his head, look her in the eye and ask: Am I okay? Is my job gonna still be here tomorrow and next week, queer or not queer? Can I count on you the way you and Rocky are counting on this Aguilar guy? 

“What else were you gonna say?” he forced himself to ask. 

“Oh, right.” She dug into the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a paper that had been folded in fours. “This. Especially after you hit that deer Friday night, this relieves my mind. You could have been really hurt. Your waiting period of three months for health insurance is over, and now you’re fully insured. Well, as least as much as the insurance that Rocky and I signed you up for allows. It’s not the best, but it’s something.” 

He took the paper from her, not able to say a single word. Guess maybe he could rely on the Buckminster family after all. If he was gonna get thrown out on his ear, they’d be busy canceling this thing, wouldn’t they? This was the first health insurance he’d had in his life, something he’d almost forgot about that they’d talked on back in the spring. 

He tucked it into his shirt pocket, cause without his glasses he wouldn’t be able to read much of it, and then cleared his throat. “Guess this means a smaller paycheck.” 

“That’s right. We’re paying one-third of the premiums, but you pay the rest through automatic deduction. Are you okay with that?”

Jack had his own medical through the feedlot, Ennis knew. If he’d been hurt bad when the truck had got wrecked, what would Jack have done? He didn’t want Jack to dip into that money he’d said he got from the divorce just to care for Ennis’s old brokedown carcass. Ennis was trying to pretend that settlement money didn’t exist, hadn’t mentioned it since that talk they’d had back in Texas at the Red Lobster, and he didn’t even know how much it was. 

“I’m fine with this,” he said. “It’s a good thing.” 

“I think so too.” Betty Jo reached down to unwrap Davey from where he’d been clutching at Ennis the whole time they’d talked. “Time for your lunch, little boy.” The two of them walked back up the steps, but then BJ turned around. “Oh, and Ennis?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“We’re trying hard to make sure the boys learn not to drink and drive. Please don’t do that again. It sets a bad example.” 

When she disappeared inside the house, Ennis let out his breath. He took off his hat and scratched the top of his head. He was fucking exhausted, with expectations and feelings pulling him one way, then the other way…. 

_Jack? I still don’t know what the hell’s going on, but it might be that things are okay. I think. Shit, I don’t know, but I’m through fearing it. I got work to do._

*****

 

Ennis met the new hand about three in the afternoon when he turned his attention to the broodmares and their hoof conditions. He was bent over, a mare’s hoof up on his knee as she waited for him to check her over and make sure there wasn’t any sign of thrush, when he heard a voice over his head. 

“You must be the man in charge. Ennis Del Mar.” 

He finished poking at the frog in the center of the hoof, let go so the horse could stand on all fours again, and straightened to see who this person was. 

“I’m Del Mar,” he said, wiping his hands on a rag he carried in his right back pocket. His work gloves were hanging from his left pocket. He stuck out his hand for a shake. “You Aguilar?”

“That’s me,” said the guy who could have been Tonto’s father. Or grandfather. Either way, he looked sort of like a Hollywood Indian, but broad and stocky, with a wide face and dark eyes, and a blue bandanna wrapped around his gray head. Only it didn’t seem that the buzz-cut left enough hair to warrant any scarf. 

“You can call me Floyd.” 

He didn’t sound like a Hollywood Indian either. Floyd talked as American as they came, with a strong way of speaking. “Okay. Rocky fill you in on Frank’s chores?” 

“That he did. I’ll start mucking out the stalls over here, okay?”

“Fine.”

Ennis went back to his hoof checking, working his way down the line where the mares were kept during the heat of the day and the worst of the flies. Rocky’s stock was mainly well-behaved, but there were always a couple horses like Delilah, with minds of their own. When he got to one like that, a nine-year-old that was one of the Buckminster’s top producers with five high-selling foals, he called Floyd over. 

“Let’s blindfold her, then see if I can get to her without using the twitch.” 

“I hate to use that thing,” the man said. “It must hurt them, poor things.”

Ennis grunted as he managed to get her eyes covered. “Gets their attention, though, doesn’t it? I ain’t looking to be kicked in the head.”

“You go ahead now,” Floyd told him as he stood at the mare’s head, stroking her just above her flared out nostrils. “I’ve got her.”

Ennis had his doubts, but it seemed Floyd knew what he was doing. At least this time the horse let him do what he was only trying to do for her own good. He’d seen a horse that needed to be put down cause of real bad thrush that’d been let go too long, and it had been a hard thing. No animal under his care was ever gonna suffer that way. The Cross B horses were hoof picked at least twice a week, but sometimes a close look—and a sniff, cause the first sign of thrush was mainly the bad smell, like rotten garbage—was better than a cleaning. With the rains over the weekend that had left the pastures damp and muddy, Ennis wasn’t taking any chances. 

“Do we have any more like this one? Skittish? I don’t mind them like that.”

Ennis shrugged. “Since you’re here, there’s a couple over there I could use a hand with. Come on, let’s get them done.” 

He probed at the last mare’s off hind foot, cause the two grooves to either side of the soft tissue were awfully deep, but she seemed good. 

When he stepped away from the mare, Floyd was looking at him like he was something interesting. “I hear you’re from Wyoming,” Floyd offered. 

Ennis walked over to where they kept the cleaning tools and started to wipe off the hoof pick. Uneasy feeling went up his spine. Who was he for anybody to talk about? Would Rocky tell tales? “Yeah? I don’t hear anything about you.” 

The man had a laugh like Jack’s, clear like a bell, real, showing he didn’t take offense. “Oh, I’m all over, doing odd jobs for folks. A little bit here, a little bit there. It keeps me busy. Chopping firewood, clearing brush, helping with the stock. Home health care and reading to invalids too. You live in the valley, right?”

It wasn’t any business of his. Ennis grunted and let this Aguilar fella take that however he wanted. 

“If you ever need some work done around your place, you know who to call. I’ve been up by Red River the last few months, staying with a friend who had open-heart surgery, but she’s a lot better now and I’m back home looking for work. Anyway, like I’m saying, my life’s an open book.”

Ennis threw him a glance. Some folks could do it that way.

“You don’t believe it? What do you want to know? I’ll tell you.” 

“Don’t need to know anything but that you’re good with the horses.”

Floyd ignored what he said. “I’ve known Rocky and Betty Jo since they were newlyweds. I used to babysit the boys when they were little. They minded me like I was their own father.”

“That so.”

The guy wouldn’t take a hint. Ennis wasn’t gonna give him any ammunition for more talk about the man from Wyoming. It was bad enough that he didn’t know which way the wind was blowing with Rocky and BJ. The more he thought on it, less he felt comfortable. Was he being put to some sort of test? To see if maybe he’d act queer or spook the boys or…. And if he didn’t pass the test, there went the job? He didn’t know how to act not queer. Didn’t know how to act queer, either. Jack had said that he didn’t think it showed, but….

“Most people are interested in me because I look Indian. But I’m only half. I think.”

Ennis didn’t say anything.

“My mother was part-Mexican, part Indian. My dad was the same, both of them just a big mish-mash. I figure put it all together and I’m about half and half, but nobody knows which half.” The man grinned as if it was a common thing for him to do. “I’ve always been interested in Indian ways. I bet you think I learned all sorts of things, war chants, herbal remedies, the lore of my people at my mother’s knee.”

Jack would love this guy. “I don’t think nothing.”

“That’s what I learned from her, nothing. She couldn’t even tell me what tribes we’re from. Anyway, what I know I learned from books.” 

“Books? Like back when you were in school?”

“Like in the public library,” Floyd corrected. “You’d be amazed at what you can learn there.” 

Ennis walked past him to where a chestnut mare was bobbing her head. “You gonna take care of Frank’s brushing too?”

“Sure will,” Floyd said promptly. “Which ones are his?” 

Floyd was a hell of a lot better worker than Frank had ever been, that was for sure, even though he was probably twice Frank’s age. They let the mares out into the pasture a good twenty minutes before the usual time. Ennis leaned on the gate of the fence and watched the last one shake all over before she headed for freedom and good grass. All these mares were bred already, with foals expected in the spring. That was gonna be one busy time. Rocky had made clear he didn’t expect Ennis to take a hand in the foaling but wanted him to keep the rest of the ranch going, but he couldn’t see how that was gonna work. Likely he’d be part of it too. 

“Hey, Ennis!” 

He turned around to see the oldest Buckminster boy jogging up to where him and Floyd were standing. He’d seen Tag do that before, the jogging. He guessed that was Tag’s way of training for the six man football he played.

A couple seconds later, somebody else came into sight, the youngster in a bright blue t-shirt and jeans rolled up around the ankles cause of his short legs. The youngest Buckminster boy was running hell bent behind Tag, though trailing a ways behind. 

“Hey,” Ennis said, and he went down a short way to meet him. He didn’t like the look of Davey’s red face and heaving chest, and when the little fella came right up to him, he lifted him into his arms. For all that he was so much shorter than he should have been, still the boy was a solid weight. 

“You okay?” he asked tenderly, like he talked to his horses. “Take your breath now.” 

Davey nodded hard. One hand came around Ennis’s neck, and it felt just like when the girls had been babies, clutching him, depending on him. A really good feeling, but from long ago. Only Jack ever touched him now…. He hefted Davey over to his side, so he would have an easier time taking in air. 

“Don’t worry,” Tag said. “He’s fine.”

Tag looked to be in a worse state than the little fella. It was likely there’d been some heavy drinking going on in that overnight stay BJ had mentioned, and that’s why Tag looked like something the cat had dragged in. He wasn’t red-faced like his brother. Instead his eyes were big and shadowed, puffy, with the rest of his face pale as a full moon. 

“Your brother shouldn’t be running like that in this weather. It’s too hot. Have you seen your mom? She was looking for you around lunchtime.”

With a frown and a roll of his eyes, Tag said, “Yeah, mom found me. Christ, I was only over at Jerry’s. I just couldn’t come back on her schedule. Hi, Floyd.” 

“Hello there, young man.” Aguilar said it quietly, making the judgment Ennis saw no need for. 

“I think she had some chore for you to do. Did you—”

“Why do you think I’m stuck with babysitting the Natural?” Tag asked sharp. “She’s up in her office writing her stupid Star Trek stuff. You know she does that, don’t you?”

“Your mother deserves some time off,” Floyd said. “She works hard. Your brother isn’t easy to care for.”

“Yeah, but why do I have to watch the Natural when she’s playing around with Kirk and Spock, just because she has a deadline to meet?”

Ennis tried to figure this out. “She writing some sort of book?” 

Tag blew out air like he’d had enough with the questions. “Not exactly. It’s… it’s just fun stuff. She spends hours at it and doesn’t make a dime, but the people who print it pretend like it’s real. You wouldn’t believe it, she’s got fans all over the country. They write letters to her.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, it’s true. Listen, I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Do you think that new horse we got from you is safe enough for Davey to ride? What’s his name?”

“Samson,” Ennis said.

“Yeah, that big bay you’ve got tethered around the other side of the stable. He must be over seventeen hands high.”

“I thought your mom told me Davey shouldn’t be around the horses cause—”

“It’s okay if a grown-up is with him. What do you think, would you give him a ride?”

Ennis pulled back to look at the boy whose legs were wrapped around his waist. Davey looked back at him without blinking. “You sure he’s been on before?” he asked Tag. “Not gonna scare him none?”

Floyd put in, “I’ve seen him up with BJ on Jersey.” 

“That horse was stolen last week.” 

“I know, I heard all about it.”

Tag smirked. “Yeah, we’re celebrities now. Come on, Ennis, help me out here. If you ride him back to the house, I can take care of what Dad asked me to do up here. I won’t be long. I’ll meet you to take him back in, say, half an hour?”

Ennis doubted that Rocky had told him to do anything at all, but that wasn’t his business. His business was just him and Jack. Maybe the boy was gonna sack out in the hay, cause it looked like he could use the sleep. But he didn’t mind giving Davey a ride. He’d done that with Junior and Jenny when they were little. Besides, he was ahead on what he’d hoped to do this day cause of Floyd’s help. 

Ennis set Davey back down on the ground and then stayed bent over and asked, “You want to ride a horse with me?” 

No doubt the boy understood, if big smiles were to be believed. He held his arms toward Ennis. “Up!” 

“Let’s go do it.” 

Samson stood without moving when Floyd helped by lifting Davey up in front of him, once Ennis got settled in the saddle. He wasn’t worried about Samson taking the weight or being upset by anything unusual. He was more concerned with the boy. He spread his fingers to keep hold of him with a hand around his mid-section. 

“You okay?”

Davey nodded vigorously and grabbed hold of a handful of black mane. 

Down on the ground, Tag said, “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine. He loves horses, it’s just that he doesn’t have any sense.” 

Ennis ignored him and settled his feet in the stirrups. “You tell me if you want to get down.” 

Davey squirmed around so he could look into his face. Those little-boy blue eyes were as clear as the day around them, no clouds, and it was hard for Ennis to believe that he didn’t understand what was going on. 

“Okay,” Davey said, plain as could be.

“Turn around now. Look at the horse’s ears. Hold on, cause here we go.” 

He gave Samson some heel and clucked, and like the good horse he was, Samson started down the path toward the house. The Natural gave a little sound, close to a laugh, and he wriggled all over. 

“Hey, there,” Ennis said, “you sit still.” 

The boy sat like a statue for the next fifty paces, so Ennis gave some thought to maybe not taking the straight way down. He’d intended to check on the next field up, where the mares further along in their pregnancies were. So, being careful to keep Samson at a walk, he turned the horse around so they could go that way. 

That brought him back to where they’d started. Floyd and Tag were still standing where he left them, but they weren’t paying him any attention. They was facing each other the same way him and Jack had been on Saturday early morning, nose to nose and damn mad about something. 

A trick of the breeze brought him part of what they were saying. “…think I won’t tell your mom and dad, you’ve got another….”

“…aren’t my dad.”

Floyd was taller than the boy by a good two inches, but he had to be at least sixty-five, more like seventy, and Tag was well-suited to be a football lineman with his broad shoulders that said he’d eventually fill out some. Ennis watched while the boy clenched his fists and stuck out his chin. It wasn’t his place to give orders to the boss’s son, but he wasn’t gonna let the kid beat on an old man, either. 

“Tag,” Davey said. “Floyd.” 

The old Indian guy held up his finger and shook it, just like that football player was five years old. He wasn’t gonna take anything off the kid, that was clear, and after a couple seconds when Ennis didn’t know which way things would go, Tag growled something he couldn’t make out and stomped off into the stable. 

Ennis brought Samson to a stop twenty paces away, and after shaking his head, Floyd came over to them. 

“I guess you heard that,” Floyd said. Without waiting for Ennis to say no, he’d missed most of it, he added, “I’ve told him before if he didn’t stop smoking the dope that I’d tell his parents. Now he comes from Jerry Halston’s house looking like that and expects me to turn the other way!”

Ennis hadn’t ever had such effects from his times sharing a joint with Jack. They’d mainly got relaxed and had pretty good sex. “Looked to me like he just didn’t get any sleep. Probably been drinking, don’t you think? Understandable, for boys to get into mischief.” 

Floyd put his hand up on top of where Davey was grabbing the saddle horn. “You go on thinking that if you want to. I can’t believe his parents haven’t caught on.”

Ennis thought on Betty Jo looking for Tag, and Rocky seeming concerned when the boy was about to drive away that dinner night. “I reckon it’s possible they have their suspicions.” 

“You think so?” Floyd asked, looking relieved. “I don’t want to be a big mouth unless I have to.” 

“I don’t know,” Ennis said, uneasy. “You know this family, not me.”

“You’ve been here, what? A couple of months?”

“More than three.” 

“Long enough to know them plenty, unless you’ve been hiding your head in the sand.” Floyd stepped back with his hands on his hips and looked them over, Ennis, Samson, and the boy. “It doesn’t look to me like you don’t know the family. The Natural seems to have taken a liking to you.” 

Ennis ducked his head. “Seems like.” 

“What did you come back for?”

“Just heading over to the other pasture.”

“Okay. I guess I’ve got some adolescent counseling to do. And a few more stalls to clean. I’ll see you later, Ennis.” 

Ennis sat atop Samson for half a minute, thinking how he hoped Junior and Jenny never got into drugs or heavy drinking, until Davey said, “Ennis! Go!”

He looked down at the brown head. “So, now you know my whole name?”

“Ennis.” 

“You want to go see some more horses? We’ll be climbing some, so you’ll have to hold on tight.” 

“I want to see horses.” 

“Ain’t you talking good. Though…guess I shouldn’t say ain’t. Forget you heard that.”

“Okay.” 

There was something good about riding Samson in the foothills of the mountains. The best times he’d ever had, before this living together they were doing, was in the Wyoming high country with Jack, and that had always included horses. He couldn’t help but feel better, some, hearing Samson’s hoofs strike against rock, feeling the push and pull of his muscles, breathing in the clear air that wasn’t nearly so hot and muggy as lower down. The Buckminster spread went not only back to the hills but up too, and pretty soon he pulled the horse around and stopped him, at a good place to look down across the ranch and across the valley. 

The boy didn’t say anything when they stopped. Betty Jo said they didn’t know what was going on in his head cause he didn’t talk much, but Ennis figured it could be that Davey was thinking the same things as anybody else, faced with the view in front of them. 

There were some colors that seemed to go straight into a man, all of them connected with the good Earth and nature. The grass growing in the fields. The brown and green of the pines standing tall on the slopes. The glittering of the sun on the waters of Eagle Nest Lake, that he could just barely see a sliver of, a couple miles off. 

And there was other things that comforted a man. The whickering of one of the mares coming to him from just over the next rise. The breeze touching his cheek, come from who knew how far away. The feel of the little boy sitting in front of him, leaning back against him with every kind of trust. 

Ennis’s hand, that had been around Davey the whole of their ride, shifted so he made sure the little fella wouldn’t fall no matter if Samson startled. Those older brothers called Davey the Natural. Betty Jo said that was cause Davey was meant to be, despite him being so different from what folks expected. Huh. Could be that the boys might call Ennis the same, if they were to find out about the kind of man he was, cause sure as hell he was different from what was expected. 

Except, he faced facts. They were more likely to call him faggot and some other names Ennis had heard but didn’t want to think on. Pansy ass. Cocksucker. Fairy.

Why did it have to be that way? Him and Jack, they weren’t hurting anybody. What call did any man have to look at him cross-wise, anyway? 

Samson lifted his head, snorting, and Ennis realized he’d tightened up on the reins for no good reason. “Whoa there,” he soothed. 

“Let’s go!” 

“Yeah. We’ll do that.”

*****

 

When thirty minutes later he rode into the stable yard near the house, Rocky was there working on the engine of the tractor. He looked up when Ennis and Davey were still some distance away, and something in the way he straightened made Ennis too aware of the boy sitting in front of him. 

But when they got closer, Rocky was smiling, and Ennis couldn’t see any sign that he feared his son had come to any harm—including the worst sort of harm he could imagine—at Ennis’s hand. He came up to where Ennis pulled Samson to a stop. 

“Where have you been, Davey?”

“Daddy! Ennis and me on a ride. We saw horses.”

“Aren’t you the talkative one today.” He rested one hand on the little boy’s knee and looked up at Ennis. “How’d you get stuck with babysitting chores?” 

“Tag asked me to care for him a while,” he said, feeling awkward. He didn’t know how to look innocent any more than he knew how to look queer. Or not. “I thought this was okay.”

The man’s long face tightened. “Tag shouldn’t do that. If he’d come home when he’d said, he would have had plenty of time to take care of his chores.”

“I didn’t mind. I checked on the far field of mares with Davey.”

“It’s good of you. So, did you have a good time with Ennis?” Rocky asked his son.

Davey nodded over and over again. “Did. Go more?” 

“Not right now. Ennis has things to do so he can go home.” Rocky’s eyes flicked from Davey up to Ennis and then back again. He cleared his throat and reached his big hands around the boy’s waist. “Let’s go see Mommy. I think she’s finished traveling through space for the day.” 

He lifted Davey down and tried to take his hand, but the boy started to run in front of him instead. Ennis watched them go, suddenly wanting to see Jack’s smile. 

_You pansy ass,_ he told himself as he swung down from the saddle. 

True enough. 

*****

The auction where Jack was meeting him was at the old arena on the far side of Taos. Maybe it had once been used for fairs back in the forties, but lately it saw monthly auctions, plus some thrift sales in the parking lot on weekends. Ennis had been there once before, when he’d got Delilah. The whole place was rundown, with the arena being mainly a hard-dirt ring and a tin roof over it, gray steel walls around some of it but a good portion left open to the air, and inside some bleachers that didn’t look too sturdy. 

It was close to six-thirty by the time Ennis pulled into the lot, his old empty trailer rattling behind the Ram, raising up a trail of dust. It used to be that the trailer matched his beat-up truck, but now it looked good-for-nothing in comparison to the new truck that had taken its new wax job well. 

There weren’t more than twenty vehicles parked, which didn’t suggest a good selection, but Ennis figured the auction was still worth a try. He’d stopped at the house to grab a beer and hook up the trailer, and then he couldn’t resist one of the peaches he’d bought on Saturday. He’d eaten that while driving, dribbling juice down his chin. As he got out onto the gravel, he tried to clean up some by rubbing at his chin with his sleeve. Maybe Jack would want to eat in Taos afterward, depending on if he found a horse worth buying. Ennis wouldn’t say no. 

One of the parked trucks was Jack’s fine F-150. A little ways to the right of the arena entrance, Jack was sitting on a bench shaded by the only tree around, examining a piece of paper like it held all the secrets to the universe. That was just like him. 

Ennis didn’t even try to pretend that it wasn’t damned fine to see him, after the day he’d had. It was like finding something solid in the world. Certain. 

Ennis got up close and said, “Let me guess. That’s a program.”

Jack—looking finer than a fella had a right to in one of his work shirts, dark green this time—looked up at him as if he hadn’t seen Ennis walking toward him. Fat chance of that. 

“Of course it is. How will you know what you’re buying without one?” 

Ennis settled down next to him and stretched out his legs, feeling himself truly relax for the first time all day and grateful for the shade. “I wonder if there will ever come a day when I get some place before you do.” 

“It’s possible. Not likely, though.” 

“Your mama call you Johnny-on-the-spot?”

“How’d you know?”

“Some day you’ll be late somewhere, and the sky will fall. How come you’re not inside?”

“Waiting for you to show up. I wanted to ask how your day had gone. Figured you’d rather tell me out here.” 

Ennis took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his arm. “Ain’t much to tell.” He balanced his hat on his knee.

“Did you come here straight from the ranch?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s a good sign.”

“I think that—”

Jack held up a hand. “Hold on a bit.” Ennis saw where he was looking, at three guys scuffing toward them. They came up to the entrance, the oldest nodded at them and said “Howdy,” they each nodded back, and then they were without company again when the three of them went inside. 

“Go ahead,” Jack said. “You think what?”

“I don’t know what to think. Rocky for sure knows what’s going on, but he didn’t say anything about it today.” 

He watched Jack put his lips together, holding back a remark, and Ennis appreciated not hearing the I-told-you-so’s. 

“He talked to BJ about me, that’s sure too, but she just said that my medical insurance had kicked in.”

“Welcome to nineteen eighty-four.”

“Yeah.” 

“So you still have your job.”

“For now. I think they’re maybe holding off, seeing if….”

“Seeing if what?”

It had seemed reasonable when he’d thought it, but saying that bit about the queer test out loud…. “I don’t know. If I give them reason to fire me.” 

“You won’t do that.”

“I’ll try not to. I figure I’ll lay low, like I was doing. There won’t be any reason for Rocky to come out to the house again.” 

“If you stay away from deer.”

“Oh, funny, Twist. How’d your day go?”

“Pretty good. Payday for me, so I stopped off at the bank on my way here. I got to say, I do appreciate those paychecks.” 

“You drove a ways, to be meeting me here.” 

“Cimarron to Taos, about an hour and twenty minutes this time of day. But I don’t have anything to do back at the house except watch TV. Might as well watch you spending money instead.”

“Means I’ll be working more again, evenings and weekends, if I buy horses here.”

Jack gave a sigh. “Yeah, I’m aware of that. Cutting my own throat, aren’t I? But I thought….” He half-turned on the bench so he was looking more directly at Ennis. “…I thought since you said that thing, about me being on your mind some, and since I sure am not here in New Mexico because of the good reception on the TV, it made sense to give in to what we both wanted. Even if it’s just for this one night. See what I mean?”

It wasn’t possible to keep looking at Jack, not when he said words that struck at what Ennis held precious, out in the open where they couldn’t be honest in the way they acted. He hitched forward with his elbows on his knees and looked down at his boots on the yellow dirt. 

Whatever kind of God it was that had laughed when he’d sent each of them to Aguirre’s office must still be laughing, but probably gentle-like, kind, to see two men like them softened by their feelings for each other. For so long Ennis had pushed that tenderness to the very edges of himself, but not lately. Lately, it seemed he wanted more of Jack than it was possible for a person to have. He was a big marshmallow, not the strong, hard man he wanted to be and wanted others to see. It was hard to take, sometimes. 

He looked over at where Jack was still regarding him, looking maybe a little sad that Ennis hadn’t answered right off. Ennis reminded himself of what he’d promised, that he would talk more, cause Jack couldn’t read his mind, now, could he? And the damn fool liked the talking. 

“Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding husky. “I see what you mean. Another reason you’re here, huh.”

“The reason I spent the day wondering how things were going at the Cross B ranch.” 

“Not the TV?” 

“We get shit reception, Ennis.” 

“Maybe we need a better antenna. I wouldn’t want you to suffer any.” 

“I’ll check out Radio Shack next chance I get.” 

“Okay.” 

They sat without saying anything for a little while then. Jack put his arm up along the back of the bench, but with Ennis bending forward the way he was, it didn’t mean anything. Ennis watched the shadows of the leaves as they moved back and forth on the ground, conscious of how the sunlight was so bright in this state, conscious that he was a different person today than he’d been before. It seemed this was one of those days that stood like a ridgeline, where on one side all the rivers and creeks flowed down one way, but then once on the other side, all things went a different direction. Rocky talking to him in the morning…. Later on saying Ennis had work to do so he could go home to his real life, to what he was working for. Rocky knowing who it was who was waiting for him, and Ennis knowing he knew. A whole new—

“I sold the other truck.”

Ennis stirred like he hadn’t moved in a long while. “The Silverado, right?”

“Uh-huh. Some restaurant owner from Trinidad, all the way from Colorado.”

“I bet that made Corliss smile.”

“When he smiles, that means trouble for somebody.” 

“That seems likely. I don’t know how you stand it, working for him.”

“I can take his brand of bullshit. I’ve done it before.” 

“If you say so. Hate that you gotta, though.”

“Remember those guys we saw, that Corliss said he was helping out?”

“Yeah?”

“They were gone, and there were another fifty-two miles on the Jeep.”

“I thought you said he was taking them to Raton?”

“That’s what I thought.”

“It’s a good forty miles to Raton from the feedlot. He couldn’t have gone there.”

“I know. It’s been bothering me all day. Where’d he take them that’s twenty-six miles from Cimarron?”

“No place I can think of.” 

“Me neither. Some place that’s likely to have jobs?”

“Maybe he just transferred them over to somebody else from his church.”

Jack scratched his jaw. “I suppose that’s possible. Or could be the CS ranch was hiring on. Though even big as they are, it’s hard to imagine them taking on three more hands at once.” 

“It’s peculiar. I think maybe the less you know about what’s going on, the better. You should stop checking that mileage, maybe.” 

“I can’t do that, it’s part of what they expect me to do. I guess I just look the other way and pretend not to see what I’m seeing.”

“A little like what Rocky’s doing, I guess.” 

“Life’s a bitch sometimes, isn’t it?”

Ennis stood and put his hat back on. There was an evening breeze coming up that felt good against his face. He looked down at his man, who was looking up at him in every good way there was, and he cracked a smile. “I don’t know so much about life being a bitch. Maybe. Maybe not.” 

Jack stood up too. “You say the nicest things, Ennis.”

“You shut up.” 

“You make me, maybe later tonight. You want to go look at the stock, see if it’s worth staying here for the auction?”

They ambled around the ramshackle pens in back, and there were a few horses that Ennis figured would be worth trying to get, including a showy chestnut that might be good for Janice. So they went inside the arena and took seats on the bleachers, that looked like maybe they’d been built in the Depression, if not earlier. Either of Ennis’s granddaddies, who he’d never met, might have sat on the damn things. 

The sun slanted in through cracks overhead here and there, catching the dust in beams that went down to the dirt floor in the center. Ennis had been in places like this before, old, half falling apart, creaking when it was windy, with dried up dung scattered around left by cattle and horses from the month before, the year before, cause nobody cared enough to clean it up. 

They sat patiently through the auctioneer coaxing some ridiculous price for a couple lots of Brahman cattle. Then some goats were sold, some Herefords, and some rangy cross-mixes that had some longhorn in them, somewhere back a ways. The auctioneer, a fat guy with a red face and no hair to speak of, was doing a good job of working the crowd even though it was small, mainly hard-bitten ranch-types. Like him. It was usually amusing to listen to those auctioneer guys with the way they rolled the words off their tongues, faster than it seemed possible. 

Ennis leaned toward Jack. “So how come you never took up auctioneering? Seems it’d be a good second job for you.” 

“When I do, I’ll ask you to be my reference.”

“Sure enough, I can swear you know how to talk.” 

The horses came at the end, almost at eight o’clock. The horse Ennis was figuring on for himself, a sorry looking pinto, was led first into the ring, and he decided right away it wasn’t worth bidding on. Bad training he could mostly work with, but bad breeding was more than he could tackle. He sat back and let some other guy who wasn’t such a good judge of horseflesh get it for eighty dollars. Money wasted, in his opinion.

The chestnut he was considering for Janice came next. Morgan had told him to go up to a thousand. It was a fine thing to be bidding on a decent horse for a change, one that would be a pleasure to work with from the beginning. The mare had good manners in the ring too. Ennis hoped there wouldn’t be much interest, since it seemed to be a cattle crowd, but he was soon proved wrong. A gray-haired fella who he’d seen at the other auctions he’d been to, sitting down a couple rows in front of him and Jack, jumped right in at five hundred. Ennis and him tested each other out, back and forth, going up fifty at a time, but when the guy bidding against him said “Eleven hundred,” Ennis shook his head and said out loud, “You can have her.” 

The gray-haired man turned around and tipped his hat. “Much obliged.” 

Just two horses later and everything had been sold. Jack stood, the program rolled up in his hand, and said, “It’s a shame you missed out, but I think she was weak in the ankles. Did you notice that?”

Ennis jumped down to the ground from the side of the bleachers, waited for Jack to do the same, and then headed outside. “A little thin maybe, but okay for a lady’s horse. It’s not like Janice would give her heavy work. Since when are you such an expert?”

“You aren’t the only one who knows horses, Del Mar.” 

“I always thought you knew sheep better than you knew – ”

Before Ennis could go on, the fella who’d bid against him joined them as they stepped out into the parking lot, where the sun was low in the sky. He stopped and stuck out his hand toward Ennis. “That’s three auctions I’ve seen you around. Your name Del Mar? I’m Mark O’Hara.” 

Despite the heat, the man was wearing a brown jacket with big dark patches on the elbows. He had to be older than Floyd. His eyes was washed out pink and runny, the way old men sometimes got with bad sight. But when Ennis shook his hand, the grip was firm. 

“Ennis Del Mar.” 

“You’re the one who bought that fractious mare a few months back. She was one good-looking horse under all her dirt, but too much for me to handle.” O’Hara’s voice was a touch quavery. “How are you doing with her?” 

“Pretty much calmed down.” 

Jack put in, “Matter of fact, she’s sold already.” 

“Is that so?” O’Hara said, with doubt evident. 

“To Rocky Buckminster,” Jack told him. “He bought her as a general, all-purpose ranch horse.” 

There went Jack, spreading his business all over the county. “Jack,” Ennis tried to shush him. “He ain’t interested.”

“Not so,” the old guy said. “Not so. I am interested. That’s impressive. I wouldn’t have put money on anybody making headway with that mare. She was one strong-minded animal. Are you in business as a trainer?” 

“Not exactly.”

“Yes you are, Ennis.” 

“Are you his promoter?” O’Hara asked Jack with some humor. “In business with him?”

“Nope, just a friend who knows a man good with horses when he sees one. Jack Twist’s my name.” 

Ennis watched the two of them shake and recognized that Jack was in his salesman way of talking. Well, that might not be such a bad thing, since this O’Hara guy must be after something….

“Tell me, Mister Del Mar, what kind of training do you do?”

“I take on horses with some promise that don’t catch nobody… anybody else’s eye. Then resell them.”

“I know Buckminster. He really bought that mare?”

“And another one. A gelding that looked broken-down when I bought him but wasn’t.” Ennis figured it wouldn’t kill him to say more. “You might remember him, got him at that spread over by Red River that was selling out. Looked like he hadn’t eaten in weeks.”

“I do remember him. A big bay.” 

“That’s the one.” 

“It sounds like you know what you’re doing.” 

That was maybe more than Ennis was willing to agree with, remembering how Delilah had almost thrown him the week before, and how he’d just taken on two so far. He didn’t know if his luck would hold. 

He looked over at Jack, who stepped right in with, “He does. He’s got a good eye and a gentle touch. Is there maybe something Ennis could do for you?” 

“It might be. Mister Del Mar, could you give me your business card?”

He hadn’t thought that far. He hadn’t considered that one might be necessary. 

“I don’t have one yet,” he said, before Jack could jump in with some tale of how they were still at the printers. 

The old man waved a hand like he didn’t really care. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll contact Buckminster and see what he has to say about your work.” 

Ennis glanced over to Jack again and then back to O’Hara. Rocky had no cause to speak poorly about any of his work, but it could be he wouldn’t feel comfortable recommending a queer. He just didn’t know.

O’Hara was saying, “I’ve got a horse I had intended to give to my granddaughter for her graduation, but she turned out to be nearly untrainable. A four year old palomino that’s doing me no good eating her head off. If Buckminster gives you a good reference, would you be interested in taking her on? Not to buy, just to train. I could drop her off later in the week. Where’s your spread?”

Much as this was like a gift dropped from heaven right in his lap, there was no way in hell that Ennis was going to open up his and Jack’s house to just any man with a horse. “You call me if you decide to give me a try. I’ll come out to your place and check her out, see if think I can do your mare some good. That suit you?”

“Indeed it does.” 

Jack already had a piece of paper pulled out of his wallet. O’Hara supplied a pen, and a minute later Jack had written down Ennis’s number. 

“There you go,” Jack said, handing it over. 

“You’ll hear from me.” 

Ennis and O’Hara shook on the deal with Jack looking on, a smile he did nothing to hide curving his lips. Then the three of them walked to where O’Hara’s car was parked close up. He drove off in a late model Cadillac, a big car that roared its engine power. 

“Shit,” Ennis said with some wonder, looking out toward the street. “Did I just get a horse to work with without having to pay for her?” 

“Business cards,” Jack said with some purpose. “Soon as you can. It’ll make you look professional, like you mean it.”

“I do mean it,” Ennis protested, “but I can’t hardly believe that old guy knew it. He was too trusting by half, to be talking about turning over a valuable animal to me. He doesn’t know me.” 

“Your first real customer, Ennis.” 

“We don’t know for sure. The mare might not work out. Or Rocky might not say anything good about me.”

“Ah, come on, he can’t say you aren’t good with horses, because you are.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And he won’t lie, will he?”

“No, but—”

“Then you’ve just hooked your first customer!”

Despite all his worries, Ennis had to let loose a smile, even though it was a small one. “I bet you’d see sunshine in a rainstorm.”

“Sure, because one follows the other. Listen, you are taking me out to dinner to celebrate. I’m starved.”

There was something in him that figured it was bad luck to celebrate something that might not happen, but…. There was something else in him that was willing to go along with Jack being happy for him.

“There’s a Mexican place just south of my bank on the same street, maybe a block. Can’t be more than five minutes from here. Meet me there?”

“You’re on. Bet I get there first.” 

Ennis bet he would too, cause he let Jack roar out of the parking lot first, driving away with a wave of his hand out his open window. Ennis followed him. 

*****

 

Tuesday at the Cross B was a day like any other day that he’d worked there. Tag showed up in the morning looking more like himself, though maybe quieter, and did not only his chores but his brother Matt’s too. Ennis wasn’t gonna ask questions about that. It probably wasn’t Tag’s idea but his mom and dad’s. After a couple hours Matt came to saddle up his horse, a smallish roan named London, and told Ennis that he was going to the Eagle Nest Community Center for a youth picnic lunch. Ennis guessed some girl the boy was sweet on would be there. Matt headed west up toward the mountains, since from there he could take the path that went south across the foothills into town. Ennis didn’t know for sure, but he thought that same path connected with the one near his place. Near as he could tell, the two boys didn’t talk to each other before Matt left and no wonder. In his opinion, BJ had not thought the punishment through, distributing chores and what that might mean between brothers. It didn’t seem smart to him.

Floyd came to talk to him a little after noon, when Ennis was sitting under a tree to eat his lunch. He didn’t bother Ennis. It was more like he checked in, since there wasn’t anybody else pretending to be the foreman. Or maybe Floyd treated him like one of those time clocks that Ennis had punched when he worked at the warehouse in Amarillo. That afternoon the two of them checked over the rest of the mares’ hooves and worked well together. Ennis made sure Floyd knew what he was looking for before he set him loose to do the job for his half of the horses. Floyd might be old, but Rocky hadn’t hired any fool. 

BJ and the little fella were gone to Taos all afternoon so Davey could see a doctor. That was what Tag told him. Davey did seem to have more doctor’s visits than any child Ennis had ever heard of, even more than Jenny when her asthma was at its worst. He guessed maybe it was something connected with Down’s syndrome. 

Though Ennis was on the lookout for it, nothing was said by Rocky about Jack living with him out on County Road 19. Not even something like the almost-said-but-not-quite remark Rocky had made the day before about Ennis going home, that showed him being aware. 

Not that his boss was back to having free and easy ways with him. That wasn’t so. Ennis was conscious the few times they spoke that Rocky didn’t know where to look, exactly, or what to say. Seemed maybe he was keeping his distance. 

That pained him. Once or twice that day he thought on being mad at Jack about it, but he couldn’t work up enough mad to stay sore. He sort of understood how it had happened, Jack standing out in the dark when Rocky had driven up with Ennis, though he hadn’t admitted it out loud. 

Still, if Rocky acting that way was the worst of it…. The tight spot in his gut, that had been hurting since he’d seen his boss take in Jack standing out in their yard, that tight spot began to loosen just a little. He was still cautious, was on the lookout, cause he didn’t want to give anybody any cause to send him packing. But maybe this would work out. It looked like he’d kept his job, at least for that day, and that meant he was still standing next to Jack. That was what counted. It was the most important thing that everything else moved around. He had to find a way to make this life work, to make Jack want to stay with him, to make the change of moving to New Mexico not so hard on a man used to finer things. Like getting a new TV antenna. He had to make sure they did that. 

When Ennis drove home Tuesday night, he thought on something he hadn’t considered. The phone might ring when he was out with Delilah, and Jack would answer. How long could that go on without O’Hara putting two and two together? Shit.

He drove up to the house where Jack’s truck was nowhere in sight yet, set the emergency brake, killed the engine, and sat there for a bit, feeling every hour he’d worked that day. Why did life have to be so fucking complicated?

That night he cooked round steak he’d seen Junior put together with a can of stewed tomatoes and some Worcestershire sauce. Ennis kept his head down during dinner, worrying over the phone problem, but he didn’t know how to fix it. What the hell could they do? He had to keep working. He couldn’t be like a teenager sitting by the phone. And Jack wouldn’t take kindly to being told not to answer —

“You’re awfully quiet tonight, even for you. You sure everything’s okay?”

—but they couldn’t make plain their living arrangement to a customer. It hadn’t occurred to him before that opportunities like what O’Hara offered would come his way, that they might interfere with him and Jack…. 

After dinner Jack went to call Lureen, but he was back before Ennis was even through rinsing off the dishes. That wasn’t like Jack and his ex-wife. The few times they’d talked, it had taken half an hour or more for him to get off the phone.

“Everything all right in Childress?” he asked.

Jack was frowning. “I think so. She said she was awful busy and couldn’t talk. Bobby’s in Austin for the next two weeks, you know, so I guess she’s got plans. Maybe she’s seeing somebody.”

“She check out okay at that cancer place in Abilene?”

“I guess so. She said she was fine. Only thing is, she was asking about Bobby visiting. Pushing for him to come out to see me.”

Ennis shut off the running water with enough force to make the pipes shudder. “Fuck.” 

“Yeah, I know. I expect he mentioned it to her. But I don’t think it’s the right time for him to know.” 

“I don’t see how you can do it.” Ennis couldn’t imagine that conversation, how tough it would be for Jack to admit what he was to his son. “It’s different with a boy than with my girls.” 

“No, I want to have that talk with him. I’ve been meaning to, it’s just that with Lureen sick…. Hell, now’s not a good time to spring the news on her, either.”

“You said a while back that you thought she—”

“Yeah, that she figured out I’m gay years ago. But maybe not, you see? It could be she thinks I’m out here by myself, or shacked up with some gal I met over at Andy’s church.” 

“So, what do you want to do?”

“What do I want to do?” Jack asked, irritated. “Are you expecting me to tell you to go check into the local Best Western so I can pretend you don’t exist? I’m not doing that kind of shit any more. That’s one thing at least I’ve been able to change. We pretended enough for twenty years.”

Ennis looked down at his wet hands resting on the edge of the sink. Yeah, that thought had crossed his mind, that Jack might ask it of him. Hiding. Pretending. Much as he couldn’t see Bobby being told the truth, he wouldn’t take kindly to moving away from where he belonged, either, right here in this house with Jack. But if Bobby came out to New Mexico….

“Still,” Ennis said, “you do want to see your son. Sooner or later he’ll—”

“We don’t have to cross that bridge yet. I told her I would go out to Texas when Bobby was back from camp in a couple weeks, that I didn’t want him driving out here by himself, and it made no sense to fly. That’ll keep things for a while.” 

“If you say so.”

“I do. Now, don’t you have a horse to see to? The sooner you get out to her the sooner you come back to me. Here, I’ll finish the dishes, you get going.” 

Jack shoved him away, so he dried his hands on his jeans and went into the bedroom to change into his old pair of work boots. 

He was bent over lacing them when there came a sound he’d not heard in the months they’d been there. The doorbell rang. He froze right where he was. Who the hell….

He heard Jack’s steps go over to the side door, heard it open, and heard a woman’s voice say, “Hello. You don’t know me, but I’m Betty Jo Buckminster. Is Ennis at home?”

*****

 

He wanted to stay where he was, in his and Jack’s bedroom, until the fucking woman went away, but that wasn’t gonna happen, and it’d be a hell of a lot worse if Jack had to come get him. So Ennis finished tying his boots fast and stepped into their living room before Jack said much more than, “Uh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, he’s home. Why don’t you—”

She walked into their kitchen like she had a right to do so, and Ennis was so mad he could have broken her neck. But she was the one who signed his paychecks, as she’d pointed out to him last week. She smiled uncertainly up into Jack’s face and then turned to Ennis.

“Oh,” she said brightly, like some actress on a stage. “Ennis! It’s good to see you.” 

He sure as hell wasn’t feeling good to see her. This was their house where they could just be, goddamn it, where they’d come to live quietly with each other. They didn’t want anybody else, didn’t need anybody else, and couldn’t risk anybody else cause who knew what might happen? That deer in his dream, so brave, staring straight at Ennis’s daddy, knowing the truck was being aimed at him. Ennis looked at Jack, who was looking at him, shocked, his eyes wide, and fuck Betty Jo Buckminster to be intruding where she had no place being.

“Hi, Betty Jo,” he said, and then he thought to unclench his fingers.

“I hope you don’t mind me stopping by….”

She trailed off, not cause she wasn’t sure but cause she was looking at Jack again, curious as a cat. She was carrying a big brown shopping bag with handles that she put down on the floor next to her.

The three of them stood awkwardly in the kitchen, not saying anything. Ennis ground his teeth together so fiercely a pain went shooting through his jaw. Fuck! 

Could be Jack was an old friend visiting from Wyoming. Could be he was a customer come to talk about the horses. Could be he was….

But she knew who Jack was, he could see it in her eyes, the way she looked from Jack to him and back again, drawing conclusions. Any second now she would open her big mouth again, and words would come out he didn’t want to hear, questions he didn’t want to answer. She’d come here to force them out in the open in their own house, where he’d thought they’d be safe, just him and Jack….

He heaved in breath, fought for strength, felt like everything in his chest was falling straight through him to the floor. Fuck if he would dance to her tune, answering like a shy kid. What would be, would be. And him and Jack? They just were. 

Looking at Jack but talking to him, she said, “I wonder if you would—”

He interrupted her. “This here’s Jack Twist.” He tried to nod in Jack’s direction but felt as if his neck was a stick of wood that wouldn’t move. “Jack, this is one of my bosses over at the ranch, Betty Jo Buckminster.” 

When Bobby came to visit, by hell he wouldn’t leave his own bed, his own house, or his man. Him and Jack, they were through with pretending, right? 

“Betty Jo, Jack lives here with me.” 

The whole world slowed while BJ nodded and—fuck her—she looked pleased, but Jack gave him a look that said about a million things at once. One of them he grabbed and stored away. It was filled with admiring, and there was another one that maybe said pride, plus one that said _I never thought you’d do that, you keep surprising me, light-of-my-life._ It was like Ennis could hear the words in his head. Jack turned back to Betty Jo and reached out his hand. Those hands that Ennis liked to kiss and suck and have all over him, fingers up his ass too. _Jack, you take care of your hands, never want you to be hurt by this queer business with me, and it’s not my fault she’s here, just things got started with a push when you came out at two-thirty a.m., no, maybe that push was when I stood at your door in Amarillo, but maybe more true was that day in front of Aguirre’s office, all leading to this._

And then time went back to normal speed. Jack and Betty Jo, who he’d never even imagined coming face to face, shook hands. 

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am.” Jack said not in his normal way, not sure, not with that happy rhythm he had, not salesman-way either, but quietly. Seriously.

“And I’m happy to meet you, Mister Twist. We have surely enjoyed having Ennis working at the Cross B.” 

“I know he’s appreciated working for you.” 

“Do you enjoy New Mexico? I’m assuming you’re from Texas or Wyoming, but maybe you met….” She trailed off with a funny expression on her face as she realized one more time that maybe she’d not said the right thing again, like she always seemed to do, but Ennis thought there was no right thing she could say, not if she stood in their house and talked all year. 

“I like New Mexico fine.” 

_Good for you, Jack,_ Ennis thought with savage satisfaction when he didn’t say anything more. _Let her figure stuff out herself, if that’s what she wants._

It seemed BJ was on the edge of asking Jack something else, but she turned to Ennis. 

“I brought you something.” She indicated the bag at her feet with some awkward gesture of her hand. Ennis didn’t make a move, so she picked it up, took a few steps between where him and Jack were standing, and set it on the table like it was heavy. “Why not take a look?”

Ennis didn’t know what else to do, so he did. Inside were some packages wrapped up in plain paper. They were labeled with black magic marker letters printed on them. _Venison tenderloin,_ one said. Another said _Venison roast._ Ennis picked up the one on top and looked at her.

“They’re from the deer you hit over the weekend. I didn’t see any sense in wasting good deer meat. Tag and Matt dressed it as soon as we got it home, so it was still good.”

Ennis didn’t know what to think. “You… you did this?”

“What…. Oh, you mean processed the deer. No, that’s more than I want to handle. Floyd did it.”

“Floyd?” He felt dumb repeating, but nothing else came to mind. Trust a woman to be so confusing.

“He works with deer a lot during the hunting season, but of course not usually in July.” She reached down inside the bag and rummaged around. “He has a really good venison sausage recipe, so I asked him to make sure he made us some. Here it is.” She held out a package that he took in his other hand that wasn’t already holding deer steak. “I kept some of the meat for us. I hope you don’t mind. At first I didn’t think you’d be able to eat it all, living here alone, but then after talking with Rocky….” She glanced over at Jack. “There’s plenty here for both of you.”

Ennis looked down at what he was holding, so cold in his hands that they was starting to give him freeze burn. 

He looked up. “What do we owe you for this?”

“Nothing. No, really. Floyd doesn’t charge us much, and we did get a lot of meat from that deer. Consider it a housewarming gift, okay?” 

Ennis frowned. She reminded him of the fucking clock in the bedroom from the coach, who’d said it was a wedding gift, meant to jab at Ennis at the same time as appearing kind. He put the meat down on the table and rubbed his hands on his shirt. 

“This really needs to go into the freezer right away,” BJ was saying. “Do you have the space for all this? Because if you don’t, I can store some of it at home for you.” She looked from one to the other of them, but he wasn’t moving, and Jack wasn’t, either, so bold as could be she walked over to their refrigerator and opened the top compartment. “Oh, you’ve got plenty of room. Ennis, if you hand them to me, I can just take care of it for you now, so you won’t have to worry about anything defrosting before it should. I know men, they don’t know a thing about food safety, and in this hot weather, you can’t be too careful. The meat’s been stressed already since Floyd brought it over today when I wasn’t home, and….” 

She went on some more about meat temperatures, taking what Ennis handed to her and putting it in their freezer her way, according to her way of organizing, and Ennis looked over her head to catch Jack’s eye. But Jack wasn’t looking at him, he was staring down at the floor, his thumbs caught in his pants pockets. 

He interrupted what Betty Jo was saying. “How’s your writing going?”

She glanced at him as a blush came up over her pudgy neck. “Oh, that.” She closed the freezer door on the last package. “It’s… okay.” 

He knew he was embarrassing her, though he didn’t know exactly why. He wanted to turn the tables and let her know what it felt like, though nothing he said could be as bad as what she was doing to him. Did she even fucking know what she was doing? “You like writing about… what’s their names? The Star Trek fellas.” 

“Kirk and Spock,” she said, and her bright, acting way of speaking was sudden gone. Good. “I… I just finished a story yesterday.”

“So I heard.” 

“It’s not so…. It is something I enjoy. Well.” She went over to the shopping bag that was still sitting on their table and began to fold it. “Would you have any use for this? I save them and use them over and—” She stopped, shook it out again, and looked inside like a raccoon checking out the bottom of a garbage can. “Oh, dear. I guess one of the packages leaked. There’s blood all over the bottom of this, so you won’t want to use it again.” 

She looked around, seeking Ennis didn’t know what, but Jack went over and took the bag from her hands like he was doing her a kindness. The way this visit was going, as awkward as it was, Ennis figured that might be true. 

“I’ll throw this out, then,” Jack said. He crushed the bag in his hands and went over to the sink, opened up the door under it where they kept their trash, and stuffed it in the can. 

“Thank you,” Betty Jo said. 

“You’re welcome,” Jack said.

“I guess I should be going, but before I do…. Ennis, I never had the chance to see the mare that Rocky bought from you. She should be almost ready to come to us, right?” 

“That’s so.” 

“Would you mind showing her to me? Just so I know what Rocky thinks is a good horse.” 

He saw right through her. Did she really think he didn’t know? Not only was he being judged according to the man he was living with, but he was being judged for the kind of horse operation he was maintaining too. O’Hara must have made that phone call, and fucking Betty Jo Buckminster wasn’t giving any recommendation unless she could speak for sure. 

_How am I doing so far, Betty Jo? You like Jack? See how good looking he is, how he talks polite and knows how to deal with busybody women like you? I know how to deal with you too, but murder’s outlawed in this state._

He walked over to where his hat was hanging by the door, put it on, and opened the door wide. Looked over at Jack. 

“You come too. I bet Betty Jo wants to talk to you some more.” 

*****

 

It was almost dark when Jack came out to him where he was in the back field. Betty Jo was long gone. She’d spent ten minutes looking over Jigger and Delilah, asking him smart questions about how he found horses, what he looked for in them, and how he trained. Then she’d taken another ten minutes walking slowly back to her car, engaging Jack in determined talk the whole way. When she finally drove away, Ennis stood in the drive with Jack, wrestling with so many feelings that he thought he’d explode. 

Jack had let out a big exhale. “Well, shit,” he began, but Ennis had held up a hand. “Don’t,” he’d said. “Don’t say nothing.” Then he’d stomped back to the stable and saddled Delilah. He rode away without looking back.

Now, looking sideways, he was aware of Jack walking toward him across the field. Ennis ignored him, took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger. He felt the recoil of Jack’s rifle from the stable against his shoulder, heard the echo of sound, and saw a splinter of wood go flying away in the dusk. Another hit. 

He shot another time with Jack standing next to him before Jack said, “The neighbors are going to think a war’s broken out over here.” 

Ennis spit down close to his own feet. “Good. Maybe they can come visiting too, come check out the queers. It’s fucking Grand Central Station here, everybody invited.” 

Jack didn’t have a sharp answer to that, did he? Ennis sighted down the barrel toward the tree, squinting. The light was just about gone. Squeezed the trigger. Bam. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, the vultures aren’t in that tree right now. And they aren’t likely to be the way you keep shooting.” 

He’d already shot one limb off. It was laying in the dirt like some person with their hands held straight up, their face turned to the sky. If he shot carefully a few more times, another limb would go down to the ground. Fucking vultures. 

“If you chase the buzzards out of this tree, they might take up somewhere in the forest. Maybe they’ll like that nice pine with the treehouse in it. Or on our roof. Wouldn’t that be fine, waking up and knowing they’re right over our heads.” 

“It’s about the same right now, ain’t it?”

“Will you—”

“Shut up.” 

He aimed again, but it was getting hard to see. The dead limbs were fading to black, all shadow. He squeezed off another round and knew he’d missed. But he wouldn’t miss the next time, and he didn’t. And not the time after that, or the next time….

When he stopped to reload, he could barely see his own hands, fumbling as he fed in more cartridges. Jack stepped close and wrapped fingers around his wrist. “Ennis….”

Ennis shook him off with a growl. “Don’t you touch me!” 

“I just—”

“Out here in the open where anybody can see. We’ll make a spectacle of ourselves. We can charge admission. Come see the queers.”

“She wasn’t—”

“Like hell! She wanted to see what you were like, to see us together, snooping around looking for filth and—”

“I don’t think—”

“Shut up, Jack.” He brought the rifle up and aimed, but he’d forgot the safety. He cursed and flipped it off, aimed again but couldn’t really see. Fuck. A man couldn’t shoot straight if he couldn’t hold the rifle on target. 

It didn’t matter. He squeezed the trigger once, then did it again, and again, not knowing if he was hitting anything. But he imagined the vultures moving in overhead, flying low, seeing how their roosting place was under attack, no place for them to live any more, no safety, no home for them. Filthy birds, ate off dead bodies or circled around fascinated by seeing how animals died.

He was so fucking mad. And tired. She’d got him where he lived, wasn’t that what the saying was when a person shot true? 

He was holding up the gun like some expert marksman, like he could shoot true too, but he couldn’t cause his daylight had gone away. What was the sense, shooting in the dark? 

His man’s fine hands, strong, knowing, caring, came up on his shoulders. “Ennis,” Jack whispered from right behind him. 

He sighed. Let the rifle drop so its nose touched the ground. Flipped the safety on with his thumb, then rolled his head around, stretching his tense neck muscles to the left, to the right, straight back, then forward. Jack’s fingers dug deep into his back, rubbing the kinks out. Jack, the person who touched him.

“Fucking woman,” he ground out.

“Damn fucking woman. I wanted to slam the door in her face when she showed up. But I didn’t, because I know how much store you set by that job.”

Ennis sighed. “Nothing else you could have done. You know she was here cause of that O’Hara horse.” 

“Yeah, I figured.” 

“I guess she didn’t want….”

Jack’s voice coming from behind him finished his thought. “She didn’t want to say you were a good horse trainer until she had a look at your operation.”

Jack’s hands on him came to a standstill. Ennis bent his head low as he could, feeling the muscles pull. “No, don’t stop that. Feels good.” 

“Okay.” 

“Part of her coming here…. She wanted to see you, Jack.”

“I reckon.”

“If she’d been a man, I would have smashed her face in.”

“I would’ve helped you.”

“I don’t know why…. What difference does it make, about you? How does that matter how I am with a horse?” He stared out into the night, not seeing much.

“I don’t know. I bet she’s never met any gay men before. She must have been curious.”

“That’s fucking right.” 

“Maybe she thought she’d be able to tell, with one look at how we live, whether you were… I don’t know. Suitable.” Jack’s voice got so low, he could hardly hear. “And you’ve got to admit, she was probably concerned about the boys.” 

“She knows me more than three months now. It’s just me,” Ennis said, trying to understand but not doing a good job of it. “How would she think I’d ever do anything to hurt them?” 

Weight came on Ennis’s shoulder as Jack rested his forehead there. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “People get scared of things they don’t understand.” 

“Fuck that. I thought it would just be Rocky that one time, coming out here to the house. I feel like….”

“What?”

“It doesn’t make any sense. Not the same thing, I know.”

“Tell me.” 

“Like we’ve been robbed. She took our house away, Jack.” 

He heard Jack take a breath. Though he lifted his head away, both Jack’s hands came around Ennis’s waist. Not pressing close, just holding. Ennis closed his eyes. It was dark outside, dark inside, and he thought maybe he would fly away into his darkness, except for the touch of Jack’s hands on him. Anchors. 

Eventually Jack said, “Yeah. I know what you mean.” 

“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Me neither. Ennis, I am damn sorry about Saturday morning, coming out and Rocky seeing me. I had no idea this would happen.”

“I know. I understand how it played out that night. You were worried.” 

“That’s the way it was, yeah.” 

“I’m sorry I got on you so bad. Maybe I went overboard some.” 

“You’ve got a temper.”

Ennis took in a shuddery breath. “I just don’t see any reason why we can’t be left alone, you and me.” 

“We can’t hide here forever. Don’t you want to live in the world?”

“The world doesn’t aim to do me any good. You neither.” 

“I don’t know. Much as I fucking hate the way Betty Jo came out here, judging us, still…. She seemed okay.”

Ennis hated to agree. But it was true. She’d pushed their doorbell and checked out how they lived, she’d met Jack and taken his measure, she’d seen the set-up with the horses and asked her questions, and at no time did it seem that them being queer was putting her off. Right now Ennis felt sure she was on the phone telling O’Hara that Ennis Del Mar was a good trainer and could be trusted with his horse. 

“You know something else?” Jack asked him. 

Ennis looked up to the black sky. But the stars were coming out, and already he could see a bunch. “I don’t know nothing tonight.”

“Our house hasn’t been taken away. It’s changed, yeah, now that a couple people know we’re here. But that isn’t important to how we live, is it?”

“Maybe.”

“If you let it, yeah. We just can’t let it.”

He turned around in the circle of Jack’s arms, and in the glow from over their heads, and from the yard lights that had come on down by the house, and from the way his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he could make out his man’s face now. Different from in the broad daylight, but there. He brought their foreheads together in their old, old way, taking some comfort from something so familiar they’d been doing for more than twenty years. “How do we do that, huh?” 

“By remembering why we’re here. It isn’t where we live, Ennis, it’s being together.” 

They were words that could have been on some dumb TV show, words that Ennis would have made fun of years before. He would have said they meant nothing to him, mainly because they really meant everything to him, deep inside. 

Being together. He wasn’t going to let Betty Jo Buckminster, or O’Hara with a horse, or Bobby Twist take that away from them. Unless Jack decided to leave him, that wasn’t going to change.

*****

On Wednesday night after dinner, the phone rang before Ennis was out the door. He looked at Jack for a long few seconds, but then Ennis went to pick it up. Jack bit his lower lip and walked away, but he trailed his hand across Ennis’s shoulders as he did that, while Ennis talked with Mark O’Hara about his filly. He drove over to check her out on Thursday and brought her home that night. 

On Friday morning he took Delilah to the Cross B ranch. Rocky was there to meet him and stood back while Ennis unloaded her. She took it well and seemed to like the new stall. That afternoon Rocky rode her, and Ennis rode Samson, up to the three-year-olds’ pastures. Delilah kicked up her heels a few times too many, but Rocky laughed and reined her in without much trouble. 

That was good, hearing the man laugh, cause Ennis hadn’t heard anything that easy from him the whole week. 

“I’ll keep schooling her when I get the chance,” he offered as they rode side by side. “But I’m not sure she’ll change all that much. Some horses are just like that.” 

“I know,” Rocky said as he leaned forward and petted her under her mane. “I knew that when you first showed her to me. She’s fine the way she is.” 

Ennis didn’t see hardly anything of Betty Jo, and that was a good thing, as he didn’t know what he’d do when he did. It had been bad enough on Monday figuring she knew he was queer, but it was so much worse to have her see him and Jack together at their house. 

Trying to sleep on Thursday, he kept wondering what it was that she’d seen, the picture the two of them must have made. Jack with his dancing spirit gone quiet cause of his caution around her, Ennis with…. What? What had she seen in him that night? A lot of sharp, rising anger, she must have, that he was still trying to keep down. He’d not butted into the Buckminster business, why the hell did she think she could…. But then he remembered the O’Hara horse, and a woman who’d been asked to vouch for him, who had vouched for him, since the palomino was in his stable. It was hard to fault her for that.

Ennis rolled over facing Jack and put both his hands under the pillow. They’d made love that night, making no sounds a person sitting in their kitchen could have heard, but Jack had said things to him in other ways. Ennis had tried to say things back. He figured they each heard the other. He rested his hand against Jack’s back, over the sheet so not skin to skin, but it was enough. How had he gone so long not knowing what it was to sleep next to Jack every night? It gave him a feeling he’d not known before in his life. The closest he could come was thinking on his mama singing to him when he was a kid. Five minutes later sleep took him. 

On Friday Betty Jo came to him about getting hay off a field they had for that purpose. She didn’t say anything about visiting them, and that suited Ennis. He remembered that they hadn’t said thanks for the venison. He considered doing so as she stood in front of him, Davey tugging on her hand, asking if Ennis could drive the mower when it came time for haying. But he kept seeing her looking at Jack, sizing him up, so Ennis kept quiet. 

Jack seemed to be having a quiet week at work, though he complained about the paperwork that had piled up from when he was in KC. He swore he wouldn’t ever be gone the whole week again, as it was just too much trouble. That suited Ennis too. He wanted Jack home, close. Marshmallow thinking maybe, but that was the way it was. Not that having Jack home meant they were any safer from outsiders than if he wasn’t. Just that… if Jack wasn’t there, why should he care about it so much? Ennis wasn’t sure how their mixed-up house—not what they wanted or needed, not good enough for Jack for sure—had become so important to him. It wasn’t the house, but the man in it that he cared for so strong, and he just wanted Jack there. 

Saturday promised to be the hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures soaring to ninety-six degrees even this high up in the valley. Ennis got up early to spend some time with the mare, who was named Fancy, not a name he would have picked out himself. She had only middling stable manners, but put a saddle on her and she let you know she was the boss. Ennis had a ways to go before she saw there wasn’t any reason to get mad, that there was a partnership between man and horse that wasn’t about losing pride. 

By noon there was nothing more he could do with either Fancy or Jigger, and it was already way hotter than it should be, so he let them out in the field and wandered back to the house. There was a note on the table saying that Jack would be back after lunch, and Ennis was disappointed to be alone. He worried about where Jack had got to and thought on how that man needed to be tied down sometimes to keep him from flying away from where he needed to be. Ennis felt the silence. 

He made himself lunch—a turkey and lettuce sandwich with butter and a pickle—and then added an orange cause he never liked to eat oranges at the ranch or anywhere out of the kitchen. They were too messy. Jack was always on his case, wanting him to eat more. 

It wouldn’t do much good to take a shower now and then sweat in the heat of the afternoon, so before he went to get clean he turned on the air conditioner in the back room. It was only the second time they’d done that. When he walked back there in fresh clothes and with his hair slicked wet, it was cool already. He flopped down on the sofa and turned on the TV with the remote, hoping a baseball game would be on. He waited for Jack to show. 

It wasn’t long before he heard a vehicle drive up. He hated that he sat up and tensed, listening until he heard the side door open and close and Jack’s sure footsteps on the linoleum floor. 

“Ennis?”

“In here,” he hollered over the hum of the air conditioner. 

Jack came in with a big box in his hands and his same old smile. That lifted Ennis’s spirits considerably in about half a second. 

“Look at what I got. Radio Shack’s guarantee that our picture will be better with this antenna or our money back.” 

Our money. “How much I owe you for that?” 

Jack set the box down next to the TV. “I already paid you for groceries from last weekend, didn’t I? I got the best antenna I could, like the salesman recommended. So you owe me eighteen dollars and twenty-two cents.” 

“Will you carry me until I get to my wallet? Am I good for it?” Ennis asked, aiming to amuse him. 

“Sure,” Jack said, and he came over and popped a happy kiss on Ennis’s lips. “You’re plenty good.” 

“What’s got you so perky?” 

“Nothing. What’s on?” He nodded to the TV that was showing a commercial. 

“Some program about panda bears. But the Mets and the Expos should be on in ten minutes.” 

“Okay. Let’s see how this thing works. Are you going to sit there like a lump on a log or are you going to help?”

Ennis settled back again, feeling as good as he had for more than a week. It didn’t take much, just Jack in the afternoon, a rare thing for the two of them, made possible cause of just that one mare he was working with right now. “I like seeing you break a sweat. Go ahead.”

By the time the baseball game started, the fuzz and snow had gone completely out of their picture on two channels, including ABC where they watched baseball. 

“Hot damn,” Jack said, standing back where he could get a good look. “We should have done this months ago.” He glanced up at the AC unit. “If it gets hot enough, we might need to sleep in here. I can’t believe there’s no central air in this place.”

“It ain’t the Texas panhandle, you know. This kind of weather’s unusual here.” 

“You say that tonight when you’re tossing and turning.” 

“We take care of each other like we should, I’ll be out like a light.” 

Jack snorted just like Samson did sometime, shook his head, and walked out of the room. 

“Get me a beer when you come back,” Ennis yelled after him.

“It’ll be a while. Give me ten minutes.”

“Oh, forget it,” Ennis grumbled mainly to himself. He hauled himself off the sofa and followed, but the shower was running already and Jack had disappeared. Ennis reached inside the fridge for the beer while a little tingle ran up his spine. It seemed maybe Jack was thinking along the same lines he was as far as plans for the afternoon were concerned, them both taking showers in the middle of the day. 

He went back to the couch and slouched down on it with his arms up behind his head and his legs stuck out straight to the floor. Kicked off his shoes and tried to concentrate on the game. The Mets were up by one already. It was fine when he heard Jack come out of the bathroom, but then his man’s footsteps went in the opposite direction, toward the bedroom. He picked up the beer from where he had it on the floor and took a swallow. The Expos would never be worth a damn unless they were willing to spend money on good players.

Just a couple minutes later the creaky floor showed somebody was coming his way. The door keeping the cool air where it needed to be opened and Jack poked in his head, looking the length of the room toward him. 

“You still want that beer?”

“Nope. Got one myself.” He held it up in proof. 

Jack came all the way in then, letting the door slam behind him, looking fine in a gray t-shirt and jeans, bare feet, his hair shining wet, and carrying… Ennis sat up straight. Carrying that bag that had come from Kansas City. He’d forgotten all about that. 

Ennis closed his lips over saying something, cause Jack was coming toward him with a devilish look. Ennis figured he was in for it, and he didn’t care. 

Jack settled in next to him, close, their hips and the line of their legs touching. “Is this a good game?”

“One to nothing, Mets leading.”

“You don’t care about the National League.” 

“I like baseball.” 

“Oh. Well, then, I guess we’ll watch the game.” 

Ennis chuckled low, feeling it in his chest. “I doubt it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want to show me something, Jack?”

“Whatever’s in this bag?” He patted where it sat next to him on the cushion. “Yeah, it had crossed my mind that maybe you’d be interested, but since you want to watch baseball—”

“I never said that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Jack, show me what you got in there.”

“You sure? Because I don’t want to interfere—”

“You fucker, show me!” 

“Okay, it’s on your head.” 

Jack made a big production of it, keeping the bag where it was flat and pulling his surprise out inch by inch. Ennis, looking across him to see, was disappointed when he saw nothing but a magazine coming out, but when Jack had it out completely from the plastic and turned to slap it on Ennis’s lap, his disappointment disappeared. 

He stared down at the thing. “What….”

“It’d not often I’m in a big city, so I took advantage. Have you ever seen one of these before?”

“A porn magazine? Sure.”

“Not one like that, I bet. You’ve seen Hustler, maybe, or Penthouse.” 

“Playboy,” Ennis admitted. He hadn’t touched what was staring back at him, a photo of two men from the waist up, naked, their over-sized muscles gleaming like maybe they’d been oiled. No mistake, they were daring him to think anything of the fact that one of them had his arm around the other from behind and was twisting a nipple between his fingers. 

He swallowed. The one in front was wearing a Stetson just like what Jack had got him last Valentine’s Day. The name of the magazine was _Stallion._

Jack had both arms around his shoulders, from the side, and he was nuzzling Ennis’s ear and whispering, “I couldn’t resist when I saw this. It reminded me of you. Perfect for you.” 

“Yeah, but…. What, they got stuff like this on the street corners of Kansas City?”

Jack chuckled, licked his earlobe, and then let him go to sit back with his hands folded over his stomach. “Nope, but most every decent-sized porn shop in a big city has a gay man’s section these days.”

“They do?” 

“I thought, what the heck, it wouldn’t hurt to take a look, being alone and all, so I asked a bartender where I might find some X-rated stuff, and --”

“Jesus, Jack!” Ennis said, worry over Jack and his history with other men coming up strong. “You ain’t safe to be let out on your own. What else did you do there, huh?”

Jack’s hand closed over his wrist. “Hey, calm down. I don’t have to tell you the answer to that, because you already know, don’t you?”

Ennis felt his face get hot. He looked down again at those two guys in his lap. They were youngsters, really, but seeing the one with his hands on the other, how they were leaning against each other made more than his face get hot. 

He moved his hands six inches over the picture. “Why did you think I’d….” That was a dumb question. 

“How about we take a look at the pictures inside? I skimmed through the front part in the store, but then I stopped myself so we could do this together.” 

“You did?” Ennis was as impressed with the image of Jack standing casually in a public place, flipping through pages of naked men, as he was at the force of will it must have taken to stop the page flipping. Not to mention going up to the cashier and buying this thing. 

Ennis had owned some Playboys in his time. He’d bought some right after he’d got married, seeing it as a privilege he had as a married man, and hoping down deep it would help him in the bedroom department. After the divorce, he’d bought three more over the years but never even looked at them. They were just smokescreens for whoever might have seen him buying them. And for himself, but nobody noticed and he wasn’t paying attention to the truth anyway. 

“So, you want to take a look now?”

Ennis looked at him like he was crazy. “No, I’m gonna throw it in the trash. You were carrying this thing all over Taos!” 

Jack shrugged. “Nobody saw. If you act like it’s natural and no big deal, who’s going to figure it out? Even if I’d pulled it out at the Adobe Bar, nobody would’ve noticed.”

“Shit, I would have! You’ve got no sense, Jack. You would’ve given me a heart attack.”

“A hard-on, maybe.” He reached over and took the magazine into his hands, then put an arm around Ennis and pulled him back against the sofa cushion so they were pressed close, shoulder to shoulder. “Now, who’s going to turn pages?” 

Ennis couldn’t believe how his heart was hammering. Jack was acting like it was no big deal to him, but it was a big deal to Ennis. Some step he was taking into the gay man’s universe, to be looking at pictures of men he didn’t know, with the intention of getting all het up so him and Jack could…. Hell, he didn’t need to turn pages, he could jump on Jack right now and go to it. Just from the cover. 

“You turn pages.” 

“Okay. This first spread is what I saw in the store.”

It seemed this _Stallion_ magazine had some idea of ranch hands or cowboys in the movies, or maybe a thing about the Marlboro Man. That was clear from the first pages of ads filled with cattle, cowboy hats, horses, six-shooters, and boots. Then the real thing started with a blond-headed boy who looked innocent as an angel, staring out at them from the back seat of a convertible. He was wearing Sears and Roebuck clothes that would never stand up to a real day’s work. But that didn’t matter, since with each page turned more of the clothes came off, and the boy tried out every seat in that car. He looked out at them like he wanted to work, all right, but not on a ranch. 

“Shit,” Ennis breathed, and he shifted so his dick didn’t press so urgently against his jeans. Then, guilty, he glanced at Jack. They hadn’t spoken as Jack turned pages. “You….” He pointed toward the blond leaning back against the outside of the car with his legs spread wide, nothing on but boots and hat, taking a drag on a cigarette. He had one of the biggest dicks Ennis had ever seen. No, the biggest, since only one other had ever come his way quite so personally. “You don’t mind….” He felt all mixed up. 

Like he always had, Jack seemed to know what he was getting at. “Do I mind that you’re getting hot and bothered looking at this? Hell no, it’s the object of the exercise. Does it bother you that I could about eat you up right now?”

His dick throbbed a big pulse of pleasure at Jack saying that, as he imagined Jack kneeling between his legs and going down…. “That sounds good to me. But let’s hold off a while. See how far we can get into this thing.”

“See who’ll crack first? I’m doomed, cause Ennis Del Mar is the king of self-control.” 

“Not king anymore, not since you’re around all the time.” He looked back down at the magazine. “If it’s summertime, he’d about burn his ass off, leaning against the car like that.” 

There was that little-boy giggle of Jack’s. “Licking it might cool him off some.” 

“Steam would be rising. Come on, turn the page, what’s next?”

The next spread featured a dark-haired guy, looked Italian, and a saddle. He didn’t actually suck the saddle horn, or sit down on it the wrong way—or the right way, depending on how a person looked at it—but there wasn’t any mistaking the suggestion that such activities were on his mind. 

For Ennis, this was too close to his everyday living. It crossed his mind how shocked Rocky and Betty Jo might be to know that him and Jack was doing this thing together. Somehow, the magazine-looking seemed to be a hell of a lot worse than sleeping in the same bed like halfway normal people. 

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked him. 

“Nothing.” 

Jack held the magazine at arm’s length and tilted it sideways. “I don’t know. A smelly old saddle, been used a hundred times, couldn’t taste too good.” 

“I’ll say.”

Jack brought the pages back down to where they could check them out together. “But that’s a fine looking dick he’s got.” 

Ennis had to agree. He touched it with the tip of one finger. “Goes off to the right, like yours.” 

Jack rubbed his hand straight down the length of Ennis’s thigh, from top to knee, and then back up. He pressed down on the bulge that was making Ennis a might impatient and then let him be. “Not a straight shooter like yours. You know, there’s hardly ever a guy in these American magazines that looks like you.” 

Ennis took a second to catch his breath. He wondered if Jack touching him like that qualified as being the first one to crack and then figured not. “You mean not cut?” 

“Uh-huh. You have to get some specialty magazine from Europe to see that.” 

Ennis looked at him sideways. “Did you do that?”

“Try to find some magazine I could jerk off to, that had pictures looking like the man I was crazy about and hardly ever saw? You bet I did.” 

He’d jerked himself off thousands of times to some image of Jack in his mind, and Jack’s dick had figured prominently in that. But not always his dick. Sometimes his hands, his taste, the way he had of hitching his breath when Ennis took his balls in his mouth, how he pounded the ground when he was on his knees and Ennis was inside him, how that movement was transferred to Ennis’s dick, and then sometimes how it felt to roll onto his back and let Jack inside him, that slow slide of being opened wide and then when Jack’s dick touched his sweet spot….

“This don’t count,” Ennis growled, and he lunged at Jack, took his mouth, pressed him flat against the sofa, and kissed him to within an inch of his life. He rubbed them together good too, hard dick to hard dick, and when he lifted back up to sit, he had to ask himself why he hadn’t torn off their clothes and kept going. 

Jack came back up wiping his mouth, laughing. “What do you mean, that doesn’t count? It sure does!”

“Nope. I stopped, didn’t I?” 

“Those are the rules?” 

“I guess—”

He didn’t have a chance to speak more, cause Jack was on him. Ennis laid back with a will, wrapped his arms around Jack’s back, and kissed him like he meant to do that. Slid his hands down to that fine ass and then started humping up. 

Jack tore his mouth away. “Fuck!” he panted. 

But Ennis didn’t figure he meant it seriously, cause the next second Jack was sitting up, pulling Ennis up next to him. 

“Where the hell’s that….”

 _Stallion_ was on the floor next to Ennis’s can of beer. Jack picked it up and slapped it on Ennis’s knees again. “Come on, let’s keep going.” 

Ennis eyed where Jack’s jeans looked stressed by what was inside. “You sure you don’t want to—”

“I have had this thing more than a week, never opened it once, and I’d like to see what I haven’t seen yet, if you don’t mind.” 

“Okay, hold your horses. I’ll turn pages now. But first…. This doesn’t count either.”

He reached down with purpose, and Jack didn’t stop him. Unless stopping was collapsing back against the cushions, arms limp to either side of him, and moaning. Ennis pulled down the zipper to those jeans, reached in and fished out the dick that sometimes it seemed he was more familiar with than his own. Looking down on it, there was no way he was not going to pay it more attention, so he leaned over and gave it a couple licks with his tongue. No sucking, as that would have been asking too much of Jesus Christ himself, to stop after that. 

Jack’s chest was heaving when he sat back up. “You goddamned motherfucking asshole. Turn the page, why don’t you?”

Jack leaned heavily against his shoulder after Ennis picked up the magazine from the floor, again, and started turning. He figured he’d never seen anything as good as Jack’s dick poking up proud and high, through his shorts and his open blue jeans, right next to some photo of the Italian guy who didn’t look half so good.

“You should be in these pictures,” Ennis said, low and growly, and he turned his head to catch Jack’s lips. 

The next couple pages were different, lots of photos on the same page, mostly black and white, smaller and not so professional looking. It took some staring for Ennis to realize they were real people. Real men like him and Jack, only having somebody take their picture and send it in to be printed.

“What do you think of those?” Jack asked him, his voice gone teasing. He was running the tips of his fingers up and down Ennis’s jeans-covered thigh again, coming damn close to where if he wasn’t touched soon Ennis was gonna explode. 

Ennis had so many thoughts at what he was seeing that he couldn’t hardly think straight, and especially not with how Jack was touching him. “I don’t know.” He tried to say it calmly, but it came out in a gasp. Jack’s hand was so close. He lifted up some, wanting that touch, and managed to push against his palm just barely enough to feel it. “Can’t imagine us doing that.” 

“I can,” Jack mumbled, cause he was pressing a kiss on Ennis’s upper arm, on the shirt he was wearing, but Ennis felt it like he was being branded. “We could get a camera so I could show off what a fine dick you’ve got. That I’ve got because I’ve got you. Like this.” 

The line between what counted and what didn’t count was so blurred that Ennis could hardly remember what they’d said about it. He didn’t even have time to blink before the magazine had slid away and his own dick was out and being kissed by air. By Jack too. 

“Don’t stop,” he gasped, and he pressed his fingers in Jack’s hair to hold him down. Jack listened for long enough for Ennis to close his eyes and surrender to the best lips in the whole world, but of course Jack never did listen to him the way he should. He pulled off Ennis’s dick slowly, his lips seeming to linger, but then he was gone. Instead, he framed the dick with his hands, still leaned down so close. Ennis could feel the puff of air as he talked, and it damn near set him off, just that little thing. 

“This would make the perfect shot, don’t you think? Should I take this picture? Send it in to the magazine.”

“You shithead,” Ennis growled. There weren’t any pictures of just a man’s dick in _Stallion,_ they was all attached to a person, and no way did Ennis want his picture there anyway. He knew Jack was just fooling, at least he thought so, but knowing Jack was proud of the way he looked…. “We going through to the last page or not? Where’s your spine, boy?”

Jack sat up and looked at him with wickedness in his eyes. “You challenging me, friend?”

“I sure am.” 

That man settled back where he’d been, leaning against Ennis, but this time he reached out and wrapped his fingers around Ennis’s hardness. Settled in like he was comfortable and was going to stay just that way for a while. He didn’t move his hand, didn’t stroke or rub his thumb over the top, where he would have found something to rub, that was for sure. 

“Go on, turn the page.” 

So that was how it was gonna be. Ennis picked up _Stallion_ a third time, needing to stretch to do so and not dislodge Jack’s hold on him. He set the magazine on top of Jack’s greedy hand, then felt it as Jack moved his fingers down enough so the head of his dick must have been poking through his grasp, so that the slick surface of the page rested against the tip of his aching prick.

“You fucking dumbass asshole.” 

Two could play that game. Jack’s erection was as hard against his fingers as ever, maybe harder, and Ennis tested his man’s strength by swirling the pre-cum that had leaked all around with his thumb. Then he settled too, his right hand holding Jack’s dick, his left hand propping the magazine up between the two of them, giving plenty of room for Jack’s hand to stay on him. 

Jack smiled at him, close. Chuckled. “I’d give good money to get a picture of this.”

“Shut up, Jack.” It was hard to stretch his neck for a kiss to silence that man, but he managed.

He turned the page, knowing they wouldn’t last much longer, not thinking of much except how good all this was, playing around with Jack, and how he would come soon. But what he saw next….

Another truck, but the view this time was of the pick-up bed, from the open tailgate. In the bed of the truck…. Ennis felt a chill race across his shoulder blades, followed by heat pouring into his dick as his racing eyes took in what was on both pages. He went still, and next to him Jack caught his breath in a new way. 

In the first picture, a young fella, looking ordinary, brown hair, brown eyes, naked from head to toe as Ennis had finally gotten used to seeing, sported a hard-on, laying on his back in the truck bed with legs spread against the metal. With his hands curled up beside his head. With a lazy smile that reminded him an awful lot of Jack’s. 

The second picture showed other hands on him. A pair of muscled arms reached from outside the truck, over the side, pulling one arm straight out to the corner of the bed, where a white band hanging from the tie-down there was stretched and being attached to the fella’s wrist. A tie-down just like the one in Ennis’s new truck, that Jack had commented on. The fella had a wild look on his face, like he’d been snuck up on and he was struggling against what was happening. 

The third picture showed his other arm already caught, white around both wrists, both arms pulled out and over his head, held tight. Whoever it was who’d done this to him was barely showing but was in the truck bed too, an arm, one shoulder, the shadowed side of his head, bent low with his teeth bared, his mouth just above one nipple that strained high. The fella tied down…he liked what was being done to him now. His neck was stretched, head back, mouth open, eyes squeezed tight. Jack liked it when his nipples were sucked too. 

The fourth picture, the biggest one, had Jack up on his elbows, stretching the bands at his wrists but not able to get free, a pleading look in his eyes as he looked down to see two arms come from the side, one holding on to his balls seeming rough, definite, like nobody else had the right to do the same, the other hand with firm hold of his big cock, just the way Ennis was holding and being held. 

The fifth picture, the last one on these two pages, and Jack had surrendered. Ennis couldn’t believe what he saw, first sight ever of a man’s dick in another man’s mouth, not him and Jack, but somehow it had got mixed up with him and Jack anyway, needed to keep that man tied down so he wouldn’t get away, stay safe with him here, not go far, no more Kansas City trips where there were men who’d fuck a person and say good-bye, leave no trace, and there Jack was, straining up, aching to come in some stranger’s mouth, or maybe not a stranger but somebody he knew, Ennis was aware he’d done it plenty of times, with the coach, with that guy in Childress, Randall, all those times Ennis didn’t want to know about were right there in front of him, as Jack strained too against what held him in place, what kept him with Ennis…. and he could feel it too, a mouth on him, somebody he didn’t know, not Jack, fuckit, fuckit, fuckit, not Jack, but he wanted Jack, right there next to him….

Jack’s hands were on his face, turning him, but Ennis wanted no part of his kisses, needed a hell of a lot more, grabbed those hands, forced them down, grabbed Jack, forced him over, over onto his knees, pulled his jeans down, shit, just like the first time they’d done it, but he’d learned and no way he would shove his way in with nothing to help the slide, he stopped, chest heaving, the tip of his dick right up against Jack’s hole, saw Jack fumbling for the bag that had been pushed to the side of the couch they were on, it was right in front of his nose now, pulled out the KY, damn, Jack had come prepared, KY and a magazine filled with pictures Ennis didn’t want to see, was so fucking glad he’d seen, never had felt like this before, something inside him set loose, wild, roaring, animal he’d kept locked inside, there it was, he remembered the blond boy’s come-on eyes, and the dark-haired man’s dick that slanted like Jack’s but wasn’t Jack’s, and tie-downs in a truck….

Jack handed him the KY over his shoulder, saying nothing, saying everything in the way he went down on his elbows, held his ass up high, one hand already on himself, jerking off. Ennis squirted the stuff directly on his dick, spent about one second spreading it and then pushed forward into heat, hearing a roar that was Jack screaming his pleasure to the entire world at the way Ennis was in him now, no words, just the sound, went straight to the center of Ennis’s chest, then Jack was shaking all over like a leaf in the wind, they fell into rhythm immediate, wasn’t gonna last, couldn’t last, Jack’s shaking turned with no break into him coming, for once not announcing it before but instead sobbing with his head hung low, catching his breath, then he was finished, gasping, taking it as Ennis pounded into him, almost there, almost, hell and damnation, right…

…Jack tied-down….

there.

*****

 

 _Curve ball, strike three! Dwight Gooden has struck out the side, and as we move into the seventh inning, the score is…._

Ennis opened his eyes and blinked. The room was tilted cause he was on his side on their back room couch. The TV was showing some commercial about Bud Lite. Now that he thought about it, the game had been on the whole time him and Jack….

His eyes roved to find Jack sitting in his old Wyoming chair, his bare feet propped up on the end of the couch by sitting sort of sideways. He was smoking a cigarette. The smell of the smoke tickled Ennis’s nose, and he realized he’d been aware of it even before he came fully awake. Jack was put back together, zipped up, and looking toward the TV with the hint of a smile.

Ennis didn’t move. He didn’t want Jack to know he was awake yet, so he closed his eyes, taking the signs of Jack’s pleasure with him. That had been one hell of a session. He didn’t know that he could think of it as lovemaking. Something different. That thing he’d found inside, that had come busting out of him. He knew what it was. Not that he needed more proof, but he guessed he really was queer. 

He remembered the faces, the dicks, wondered for a bit about what other things might be in the pages they’d not seen. It wasn’t like some other man’s ass hadn’t ever crossed his mind at midnight. Just so much more often Jack’s…. Maybe it was similar for Jack, though he’d had other men for real. Gary Shelborne, Randall Malone whose name he’d only ever heard once. Other men with no names Ennis knew. They were from the before-time, though, not now, and that had to be comfort enough. 

Instead he tested out the new knowing, that he’d been the one who’d cracked cause of getting so fucking excited over some guy in a truck with a smile. He was half afraid he’d feel different now, less fixed on Jack. He opened his eyes again, and they went automatically to his man on the chair, waiting for Ennis to come out of the after-fuck snooze he almost always fell into. Jack was still smiling, and Ennis found he was too. 

Jack’s gaze left the TV and moved over to him. “You okay?” 

Sometimes it was like Jack lived in two skins, one of them Ennis’s. He nodded right there with the side of his face against the cushion, then pushed himself to sit up. Rubbed at the top of his head, then looked down at his dick. 

“Here you go.” 

Jack tossed him a wet washcloth, so he cleaned off and put his dick back where it belonged, lifted up so he could pull his jeans on all the way, and zipped. He finally found his voice. 

“I never thought of you looking for magazines with uncut dicks. What did you do with what you found? You got them around here?”

“Nope.” Jack stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray next to the phone. “When I left Childress, I trashed them all. I couldn’t stand the thought of looking at them and thinking about you. It hurt too fucking much.”

Ennis thought of how Jack hadn’t warned out loud he was coming, how instead he’d sobbed, real crying. What was it that Jack had been thinking on then? 

The Bud Lite commercial ended, and the announcers came back for the start of the next inning. Ennis pointed with his chin.

“What’s the score?” 

“Mets three, Expos one.” 

“National League has good pitching.” 

“One reason I like it. Ennis?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s something else for you in that bag.” 

“Like the KY you brought in, Johnny-on-the-spot?” 

“You start calling me that, I’ll call you pumpkin all the time.” 

“So what else is in there?” 

“It’s right next to your elbow. Look for yourself.” 

Ennis picked up the bag by one corner and shook. A Payday candy bar fell out. 

“That’s to help you put on some pounds, so I don’t get stuck by the boniest elbows this side of the Mississippi.” 

“Doesn’t go too well with beer.”

“Your beer spilled over. It must have been that last time the magazine went flying.”

Ennis looked down at where there was a big wet spot on the rug. Jack must have tried to clean it. Ennis imagined Jack being quiet so as not to wake him. 

“Okay, guess I can take a bite.” 

He tore open the wrapper, bit, and chewed. Jack got up and came over to sit next to him, just as close as they’d been before. 

“Here, let me have some.”

Ennis held it out mid-air, and Jack took a bite too. Somehow their mouths came together, sweet in all ways. 

“You were really getting into that last part. You really want to tie me down?” Jack asked, the light shining bright in his eyes.

“No way,” Ennis said. “That’s just for imagining.”

“Maybe I want to tie you down.” 

Ennis laughed big, and it felt good. “You know you don’t.”

“That’s true. You really okay with all the rest of that stuff?” 

Ennis thought of all the things he was okay with and all the things he wasn’t, porn magazines, and venison in their freezer, and his business expanding meaning they ran risks of folks finding out. He realized there was some change here and there as the days went on. Suddenly he remembered another sound that Jack had made here on the sofa, not just the sob but the shout of pure gladness as Ennis had pushed his dick as deep into Jack as he’d been able to go. 

“Come here, baby,” he said, though they were already sitting close. He nuzzled the side of Jack’s face and pushed his nose along Jack’s moustache. “I’m okay. More important to me, are you okay? I didn’t hurt you none?”

“I’ll be walking funny for a week.” Ennis pulled back, worried, but then Jack smiled and flicked his thumb against his face. “Nah, I’m kidding. I’m fine.” 

“We got worked up pretty good.”

“I’ll say. Good for special occasions, I think, but not something I want to do all the time.” 

“Nope, me neither.” 

They settled down to watching the rest of the game. After a while Jack pulled him over so he was resting against his man’s chest, another one of their old ways. Fuck, but it felt good, being home with Jack. 

*****


	6. "People Will Say We're in Love"

_Jack stood a couple of feet behind Lureen, watching over her shoulder as he tolerated the last few seconds of the visit. Lureen hovered in their doorway, blocking the path between him and her parents, letting in the cold air as L.D. and Faye walked down the drive toward their Lincoln Continental. Jack could see the way his mother-in-law carried the plate of Thanksgiving leftovers, covered by aluminum foil. He watched her turn to L.D. and make some sharp remark, causing the old bastard to frown more than he’d already been doing. Good. He hoped they had words and stayed up all night screaming at each other._

_He couldn’t believe he’d really gone and pushed L.D. like that._

_Jack turned away and walked over to the sideboard, opened up the top drawer where Lureen kept her cigarettes, and pulled out her pack with matches tucked in the cellophane. “You want one?” he asked without turning around._

_The door closed and the draft pouring on them finally went away. In the corner, Bobby already had some dumb Thanksgiving night movie on the TV, a Rogers and Hammerstein musical where love won out in the end. Some man and woman were singing about people knowing they were in love, and Jack thought he’d explode into a million pieces if he stayed to listen to the end of it._

_“I thought you were trying to quit.”_

_He went to the hall closet, near where Lureen was leaning against the front door looking at him in that lazy way she had, her arms folded across her chest. He shrugged into his London Fog jacket but left it unzipped._

_“Not tonight.”_

_When he stepped out onto the patio, the cold hit him in the face like a punch. He walked past the built-in gas grill and past the outdoor glass-topped table surrounded by four big chairs with red-striped cushions, to the very edge of the concrete._

_Jack lit up. Plenty of light from the street lamps in their subdivision cut through the darkness. When he lifted his eyes to see the stars, there weren’t half of what he knew was really up there. Not one-quarter of what was in the sky shining down. A man had to go farther out from where he lived to see all that there could be._

_He heard the whine of a big car’s engine as it drove down the street behind him, the fucker and his wife finally leaving them alone, and then his mama’s voice, talking to him when he was a boy. “There’s a first time for everything, my little Johnny-on-the-spot.” He doubted she’d been referring to him calling his father-in-law a sonuvabitch._

_First time for everything. He finally had done it, stood up like a man. Hadn’t thought he’d ever do that, had meant for his patience to be as endless as the wind blowing across the mountains. But a man had his limits, didn’t he? He’d backed down and backed down until there was nothing left behind him but a cliff to jump off of, and it was such a long ways down that there wouldn’t be anything left of him by the time he hit bottom._

_He brought his hand up to his mouth and took a drag of smoke, quick, breathed it in, then fast out, like he could sneak the fact that he was smoking past his own notice._

_A man did have limits. Guess he’d realized that for sure today._

_Smoke didn’t taste as good as it used to._

_Behind him, the patio door opened with the screech that told him the track needed to be greased again. Lureen’s footsteps sounded until she came up  
behind him. _

_“Nice night.”_

_After a few seconds of gathering back his staying power, he said, “Yeah.”_

_“Daddy really got on your nerves today.”_

_“You can say that again.”_

_“I’m sorry that happened. He should know better than to—”_

_“It’s all right.”_

_“No, it’s not. We’re Bobby’s parents, not him. He’s got no right—”_

_“It’s his nature. Has to be the boss everywhere.”_

_“I appreciated you coming to the defense of my cooking.”_

_He had the impulse to throw the cig to the ground and stub it out under his shoe, just to do something besides stand there and listen to her talk. But he didn’t. It was only half gone, and if he was going to smoke, then goddamn it he’d smoke the whole fucking thing._

_“I know how hard you work on that meal each year. You’re always tired after it, standing on your feet in the kitchen so long.”_

_“I’m… not so tired now.”_

_He felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder, and then movement as she pressed up against his side. He closed his eyes. He should have seen this coming._

_“It’s been a while, Jack,” she whispered. “More than a month.” He stood still, like a tree, but even so he could feel her trembling against him, and it wasn’t from the cold. “Bobby’s watching television. He won’t even notice if we disappear for a while.” One fingertip ran down the side of his neck. “Hey, bull rider, what do you say? I'll get the taste of my daddy out of your mouth.”_

_He knew what she wanted, what she always wanted, The taste of woman against his tongue, and it was her right, wasn’t it? Her marriage right, in their marriage bed, and he owed her that, that and what she always wanted afterward, him on top of her, in her._

_Mother of his son. Daughter to the man who gave him a livelihood, fine watches, fine trucks, fine home. Fine life. Damn fine life._

_Damn this fine life._

_The ground under him shifted, quaked like it was leaves shivering and not a foundation he could walk on, build on. Or tolerate. If he could stand up to L.D., what other changes could he make?_

_Like almost always he was facing north when he was out on the patio at night. He always did that whether he thought about it or not. He turned to the west, toward where there was a big city, where a man could be anonymous. Amarillo was but two hours away. He took a last drag of his cigarette and blew out smoke. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”_

“What’re you doing awake?” Ennis’s sleepy voice came out of the darkness. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean…. Too much thinking.”

Ennis rolled over toward him, pushed the sheet off his shoulder, and substituted his work-roughened hand instead. “The rain keeping you up?” 

“Nah. Me and my dick.”

It was the best thing when Ennis laughed, or even chuckled like now. “I can take care of both those.” 

He let it happen, didn’t even try to do anything in return, just lay there and sank into the notion of his man touching him. Sank down deep. Solid earth, his Ennis. 

“I been neglecting these,” Jack heard him murmur. Then lips were on his nipples the way he liked it, the way it had taken him ten full years to convince Ennis of, that a man might want to have that. 

A knowing hand on his dick, taking him up with the slick they each kept close. He knew Ennis wished they didn’t have to use it, but Jack’s dick resented rough handling, so the KY wasn’t only on Jack’s nightstand. When he went to the store and bought some, he bought two tubes, one for each of them. 

Weight shifted and Jack turned his head, seeking, sighing when his man’s mouth found his.

“Don’t you think about anything,” Ennis told him, his voice rumbling, rough velvet. “You enjoy this. It’s the last time before the work week starts again.” 

He didn’t come as fast as he had when he was a teenager, that was for sure. Back then, it’d been a rush of sensation, galloping to the finish line so fast everything was a blur. Now that he was almost forty there was an advantage to being able to feel it building, feeling himself get harder as Ennis worked his dick and bent his lips to Jack’s chest again, hearing his own breathing get stronger, faster.

“You’re almost there.”

“I know that,” he gasped. 

“Thought I’d let you know so y’didn’t have to tell me.”

Jack spilled over, laughing out loud, loving it, all the stars shining in his night.

Ennis mopped him up with the corner of the sheet when he was done, then leaned down and kissed him full on the mouth, with lots of tongue. There was a hardness poking against his thigh. Jack pushed Ennis over. He went willingly, and Jack applied his mouth where they both wanted it to go. Within a minute he had Ennis moaning, and not long after that the salt taste flooded in. 

Jack stayed where he was, eventually releasing the dick when it went soft and resting his cheek against a flat stomach. He was surprised when Ennis didn’t start to snore but instead stroked fingers through his hair and said, “We’ve really been going at it the last little while.”

“Since yesterday afternoon especially.”

Ennis stretched, pushing his hands over his head to touch the headboard. Jack could hear the sound of his palms against the wood, although he couldn’t see much. He reversed himself so his head was back on his pillow.

“I ain’t complaining,” Ennis said.

“Me neither.”

“How many times have we done it this weekend, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Five? Six?”

“I reckon this last time makes it six. You’d think we were back in the mountains.”

“Maybe I should’ve brought one of those magazines up to Wyoming on one of those trips. You might’ve seen things differently.”

Abruptly, Ennis’s hands came down to his sides. He got still in a hurry. Finally, after long enough for Jack to regret what he’d said five times over, he said, “I doubt it.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. Me, I’m the one who’s…. I know some things now I didn’t know back then. Did you…did you look at those _Stallion_ magazines much? You know, before? Dumb question, you said you had some of them from Europe….” Ennis trailed off. 

Jack rolled over onto his side. “Not dumb. I went through some times when I looked at them a lot, yeah. Sort of like a phase. Then, not so much.” 

“Seems you got interested again in a hurry yesterday.”

“I never looked at any of them with you before. That makes it special, doing that with the right person.”

Ennis’s arm extended in invitation. Jack took the opportunity to rest his head against Ennis’s chest and curl his hand around a hipbone. 

“The right person,” Ennis said, once Jack had settled.

“Yeah.”

“The wrong person not quite the same?”

Jack heard what Ennis wasn’t asking, what he wouldn’t ask because there were things Ennis didn’t want to hear. Couldn’t stand to hear. All those other men. Not that many considering Jack’s need at the time, but still…. He wanted Ennis to understand, but now wasn’t the hour to pursue that.

“Not the same at all.” 

Neither one of them said anything for a while. Then, “Cassie wanted me to look at a _Penthouse_ with her once. I wouldn’t do it. Fucked her right away instead, thinking of you the whole time so I could, so she wouldn’t think I needed some help to….” The arm around Jack tightened, then released. “You and me, we’re like horny kids right now, thirteen and finding their dicks for the first time.”

Jack snorted. “Thirteen? I found mine a lot younger than that.”

“Yeah, me too. But look at us, wearing each other out when I should be way past reacting to such things. You too.”

“Are you aware of some preacher with binoculars, watching over us, keeping score? Telling us what we should and shouldn’t do? It’s up to us, what we feel comfortable doing.” 

“I’m pretty comfortable right now.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“You think you’ll be able to sleep?”

“I think so.” 

Ennis grunted. He reached to pull Jack’s hand off his hip and up to his mouth, where he planted a kiss in the palm. “Come on now, let me turn over.” 

Jack lifted and Ennis rolled over onto his side. Then he came up close, pushed his nose against Ennis’s back, and draped an arm around his waist. They’d probably separate during the night and wake up on their own sides of the bed, but this was one of their best ways of sleeping together. Almost five months, now, of being really together. 

“Ennis?”

“Yeah?”

“Even with some of the shit going on around here lately, you have to know that I am fucking happy living with you.” 

Way overhead, Jack could hear the faraway whine of a jet passing, going who knew where. The rain must have stopped in the last little while.

“Is that what you were thinking about, keeping you up?”

_A damn fine life in Eagle Nest, New Mexico, or any place we can be together._

“Sort of. All the stuff that led to us being here. How it really all started.” 

“No need to be worrying about what’s past, you dumbass.” 

Jack reached down and pulled the sheet up, because he never could seem to sleep out in the open air without any covering. He was careful to keep it from going over Ennis too. “Yeah. You’re a worrying dumbass too.” 

“Ain’t that the truth. Go to sleep, Jack.”

He was just about there when Ennis whispered, “Happy, huh. Me too.”

*****

Jack put the phone back in its cradle. He sat back in his swivel chair, pushed with his feet so he turned, and looked out the side window, the one showing the brown dirt of Tulip Feedlot pen number seven, fifty-two head of Brangus cattle, and a cloudless sky. 

He fingered his moustache like he was thinking, all the while pumping a victory fist in his mind. Hot damn. His personal sales quota for the next three months filled with one phone call, made on what he’d thought would be an ordinary Monday morning. He was one hell of a salesman. Was it possible for a week to start any better?

“Jack? You okay?” 

He looked up to see Marge poised next to her desk, a doubtful look aimed his way. He shot her the smile he’d been holding in. “Yeah, I’m good. Heck, I’m real good. Is Corliss in?” He craned his neck to see around her. 

“He just got here.” She went over to the coffee pot with her cup that was decorated with yellow flowers. 

The boss’s office door was open for a change but, when Jack peeked in, Corliss was talking on the phone. He lifted his gaze from the desk to Jack, not quite frowning, wordlessly asking if he was needed, but Jack shook his head. Still, as he walked back to his desk, he realized he had to tell somehow. He wouldn’t risk Corliss taking offense because he hadn’t been told soon enough. He had no hankering to be reamed up one side and down the other. Corliss Hamilton was the boss of Tulip Feedlot, and he wanted to be treated that way.

Jack tore off a sheet of paper from his yellow legal pad and wrote on it in big letters: Got the Barton Ranch. 3000 head this week. 1000 later. Then he went back, dropped the page on Corliss’s nice wood desk, right in front of him while he was still talking, and watched while the words were taken in. 

“Tony, hold for a moment. There’s something here I need to attend to.” 

Corliss put his hand over the phone and looked up at Jack, his eyes steady. “Has he signed the contract?”

It was like Corliss expected him to have forgotten one was even needed. “He says he has. I’ll go out this afternoon to pick it up.”

“Will he require special financing?”

“Nope, these are on consignment.”

“You’d better check him out with the bank, because—”

“I did that last week. He’s fine. Middle six figures.” 

“Don’t forget to bring schedule three to him.” 

“He already has it.” 

Corliss glanced down at the yellow sheet he still held in his hand. “That’s good then. Good work, Jack.”

_You’re damn right it’s good work. Can’t say it to my face, though, can you?_

“I need to complete this phone call.” 

“All right. I wanted you to know.”

Feelings like this needed to be walked on. Jack grabbed his hat and headed outside. The rain overnight meant the stench of cattle shit was worse than usual, hitting his nose and staying when he should have adjusted by now, two hours into the workday. But he didn’t care. He walked around the dilapidated doublewide trailer to the back, climbed up the little rise, and then looked down on the cattle and pens that stretched far back to the mountains. An eighteen wheeler was in position near the ramps, where the cattle in pens eighteen and nineteen would be loaded up and taken to the processing plants. Two of the cowboys on their horses were working there along with the driver, and their _hee-haws_ and curses came to him barely loud enough to hear.

When he’d arrived in New Mexico in April, more than half the pens had been empty, and now with the Barton account secure, he’d have more than three-quarters of them filled. He’d done that. No father-in-law needed. No calling in an old favor for a job selling Fords and forcing customers into high interest rate financing. He’d walked into Tulip Feedlot blind, not knowing a soul, knowing only that Ennis had a dream of training horses and a job in the Moreno Valley, so he’d had to find one too. 

There were a few men who made Tulip Feedlot go, Corliss being one of them, with the bunk manager James Perez another. Maybe Andy, but not really, because he mainly did what Corliss told him. 

And then there was Jack Twist, bringing in the business. For so long he’d been the God-forsaken faggot son, and then the boss’s good-for-nothing son-in-law, and always the man who talked a good game but nobody ever took seriously. He’d forgotten—or maybe he’d never even known—a person could get this kind of satisfaction from doing a job. 

The July air was humid, the dampness in the pens rising up because of the sun beating down, and a prickle of sweat broke out on his brow just from standing there. He raised his hat hoping to find a breeze, but none came.

For a while, he considered how it would be to let Bobby know of his success at work. A man wanted to be thought of well by his son, especially when he was old enough to really understand. Maybe he’d call and tell him about it, come the weekend. No, the next Monday, when the boy would be back from the band camp. He could tell Lureen then too, and then give them details when he came to visit the weekend after that. It made a person feel good, making a difference. 

A difference that had to be scheduled right, and now was the time to make those plans. Jack settled his hat and turned toward the bunk manager’s office down by the feed mill. Before he got halfway there the air shivered with a roar: some lion over at the animal preserve letting the world know he was there with a long, drawn-out challenge. Jack thought of how Ennis had disguised his curiosity by talking about bringing a child there to see the animals, and he sent his smile down to the ground as he walked along. 

Jack caught up with the big, red-faced bunk manager as he was coming in from his first round of the day, checking what feed adjustments were needed to bring the cattle to full weight the fastest. Jack didn’t mind it when James slapped him on the back in congratulations, hard enough to push the air from his lungs. 

“You’ll go far, young man,” Perez said, although the difference in their ages couldn’t have been more than ten or twelve years, and the only way Jack felt young was in the honeymoon antics he was getting into with Ennis over on County Road 19. 

During the next hour they sat down with flow charts and a respectable stack of files. Soon enough they had a schedule sketched out for pen rotation, and Perez had decided he’d ask Corliss to sign off on hiring one more cowboy. When they were done, Jack tipped his hat to James, because he wanted to and not because James demanded it, and he went outside into the summer morning. 

As he walked back to the main office, hardly noticing the smell now and not minding the constant lowing from the stock, he heard somebody calling. “Hey, Jack! Wait up!”

It was Andy, walking fast on his short legs, dressed in a sport coat and slacks like his wife usually sent him to work. “Marge just told me that Jud Barton came through.”

Jack nodded. “He sure did. I called him this morning, and he gave the go-ahead.” 

Andy extended his hand and Jack was glad to take it and shake. “That’s great. I thought for sure he was a dead end, since he never did say much one way or the other in Kansas City. I would have concentrated on the other guy. What was his name, Johnson? Jackson?”

They started walking together. “It’s Jerry Jefferson, and I’m still working on him.” Jack didn’t even let himself think twice about what he said next. He just let it come out. “But you’ve got to know I’m familiar with the quiet types, you see. My best friend is so quiet a person has to use a crowbar to get a word out of him half the time.”

“Really? I bet you have lop-sided conversations.”

“He’s gotten better over the years. Especially lately,” Jack kept his feet moving over the dirt, the files from Perez tucked under his arm, and he ignored the flutter in his stomach that came from talking like this about Ennis and him: the ordinary thing he’d always wanted. “All my experience with Ennis must have paid off, because when I had the idea to go visit Barton’s ranch after we flew back from KC, Jud didn’t say no. I could tell he was serious from the get-go.”

“You could? I guess that’s what makes you a good salesman and not me.” Andy looked at him sideways. “You remind me of my preacher sometimes, the friendly way the two of you have. I don’t suppose you’ve ever thought of taking up the ministry.”

Jack laughed out loud. “You need more than words for that, and I never had a calling.” 

“You never know when it’ll hit you. A person can be called to serve at any time, and it could be a big surprise.”

“I wouldn’t be holding my breath. I already told you I’m not the religious type.”

“God welcomes everybody.”

Jack looked at him seriously. “Really? Everybody? Just the way we are? I don’t think so.” 

Andy looked at him like he was trying to figure Jack out, but Jack had no fears on that score. Besides, as far as the world of churches was concerned, the world that Andy lived in and he didn’t, loving men’s bodies and loving Ennis in particular condemned Jack to fiery hell. Well, screw that. 

“Sure we welcome everybody,” Andy said. “Unless you’re a mass murderer or something. Even then a person can repent and be born again in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

They walked past the steel medical building, where twenty sick cattle were in the back pen being held apart from the rest of the herd until they got better. If they didn’t, quickly, they’d be sold off at a loss, because there wasn’t any sense sinking more money into getting them healthy. 

Jack wasn’t surprised when Andy started talking again. “Think about it. You’ve just moved here, and I don’t imagine that you know many people. A church is a built-in support group, a ready-made, God-given community that could help you in your everyday life. Even Corliss is a member of our church, and you know how he can rub a person the wrong way. Not that I’m implying he’s a sinner or anything.”

“The way he treats Marge, making her cry like clockwork, I’d call that sinning.” 

“She’s pretty easy to upset.”

“If you say so.”

“And don’t forget about that group for divorced people I mentioned. Church is a fine place for you to meet a good woman.” 

“Andy….” Jack shook his head. “I already told you I’m not interested in meeting anybody right now. You’re barking up the wrong tree.” 

“Sorry,” he said, although it didn’t appear to Jack that he was. “I don’t mean to badger you about this. You must be wishing I was more like your best friend. Ennis. Keeping his mouth shut.”

Hearing Ennis’s name on Andy’s lips was more peculiar than he’d thought it would be. “That’s all right. So, how’s Carolyn doing?”

“Okay. She’s thinking of going back to work part-time.”

“Doing what?”

“She trained as a nurse at Abilene Christian, and she’s missing it. There’s a new practice opening in Raton. But we haven’t decided yet, what with needing childcare for Heidi.”

“It might be worth waiting until she’s in school.”

“We’ll see.”

Jack veered off toward the stable with a wave and a casual “Gonna duck in here. See you later.” But Andy looked like he’d been surprised by something, seemed to make up his mind, then stopped and called him back. 

“What?” Jack asked, coming over to stand in front of him, angling around so he wasn’t facing the sun. It was plenty fierce even at this hour without any cloud cover. 

“I just thought I’d let you know about the stable. Corliss has a few men in there.” 

That sure caught Jack’s attention. “Not somebody from the lot?”

“Right. You know, his big secret that isn’t such a secret?”

At last, somebody to talk to about what had been bothering him. “Sure. The people he’s helping.” 

“That’s right. I wasn’t sure you knew. When did he tell you?”

“I sort of forced it out of him. He’s been using the Jeep to take them around, and since that’s my area, I noticed.”

“You’re a braver man than I am. I was here a year and wondering what in the world was going on before he saw fit to enlighten me. Corliss never likes it much when they’re left over from the weekend. I thought I’d warn you to steer clear and not put him on the warpath.”

“Any more than he is usually.” 

“That’s true.”

“Where does he take them?” That had really been on his mind. 

Andy shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never asked, and I think it’s better that way. It’s what he prefers, that’s obvious.”

“Wait, you don’t have any idea?”

Andy looked off to the side, the picture of a man uncomfortable with himself. “I don’t think about it.”

“But you said he goes to your church.” 

“So?”

“This is something he’s doing with the church, right? The Sanctuary thing? Central America, the Sandinistas, all that’s going on there. I thought since you’re so involved with your church in Raton that you’d know….” Jack trailed off, because from the expression on Andy’s face, he was definitely on the wrong track.

“I know about Sanctuary, but that doesn’t have anything to do with Living Water Baptist. Much as I admire people who help those less fortunate than ourselves, we don’t have anything organized like that going on.”

Jack frowned and tried to think of exactly what Corliss had said the weekend before last. He’d said his church, hadn’t he? Jack couldn’t exactly remember. He was pretty sure…. 

“So,” he said, not quite getting it. “Corliss is doing this on his own?” 

“I think maybe with a few others in the area. But I haven’t gone out of my way to find out who. You understand, I’m a man with responsibilities, a family. I can’t take those kinds of risks. It’s against the law, after all.”

Sure, Jack understood, and the same way Andy was protecting his own life, he wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize his life with Ennis, that were no question about that.

“Look,” Andy went on. “I’m just giving you the word, okay? I think the less speculation about Corliss’s activities, the better. Know what I mean?”

Jack nodded. He sure did. He’d been meaning to check out the stable, that he’d only been in a time or two early on, ever since Ennis had mentioned that keeping the horses on the property might not be such a good idea. But… if there were some Guatemalan guys hanging out in a stall, and Corliss didn’t want anybody to pay them any notice…. Heck, the horses could wait. 

“Come on, let’s head for the office,” Jack said.

*****

_His father’s spittle came within an inch of landing on his boots. He stared at it spreading out on the dirt that wouldn’t grow anything except wiry grass, barely enough to keep the herd going. He wanted to jump up from where he was down on his haunches twisting wire together, wanted his fist to connect with the old man’s sneering face, because Jack knew what his daddy had done wasn’t any accident. Daddy spit exactly where he wanted to, including out on the wind-swept range._

_Jack stayed where he was, making himself concentrate on the breeze brushing against his face, ignoring the rage that made his heart pound. He wasn’t ready to leave yet: Aguirre wouldn’t be hiring on for another month. Another month until he could see if Ennis Del Mar, married or not, had signed on for sheepherding duties again._

_“Ya got the wandering sickness,” his daddy said._

_Was true. Anything to get away, because he couldn’t take another season, no more. Not when he knew something, anything better._

_“Ya don’t give a damn about the land. Might as well take your girl’s ways and get outta my sight.”_

He’d done it, leaving everything behind when there wasn’t any Ennis in Signal, heading out for parts south. After a few years on the rodeo circuit, he’d thought he was ready to settle when salvation presented itself, but Lureen hadn’t come close to curing him. Roots in Childress chafed at him, and he’d taken every chance to get out of there too, away from L.D., from Lureen and Bobby, away from the person who wore his face and had his name but wasn’t him at all. Traveling for Newsome Farm Equipment, sometimes he’d find men who shared the same secrets, who’d give him barely enough to keep going with his sorry life that circled, always circled around when Ennis would let him drive to Wyoming again.

Jack stood at the window behind his desk and watched as the driver of the eighteen wheeler—now loaded with Herefords—said a last word to Corliss before climbing into the tractor. Corliss stepped back and saluted the guy, and then the gears were grinding as the truck slowly went up the road and out of sight, not to stop for hundreds of miles. 

He felt differently about traveling now. He had no envy of the driver and the distance he’d go. Maybe that was because he was getting older, the anonymous fucks not what he wanted or had been needing for years now. Could be he’d seen enough of the world to know that there really wasn’t anything much different down the highway, since he always brought himself and his troubles along no matter how far he went—to the Grand Tetons, Mexico, or Randall’s borrowed fishing cabin. 

When he’d lit out for Amarillo, he’d told himself that he wasn’t running away, that he was running toward something instead. As a teenager, a young man, he hadn’t known what that was, and he’d kept settling for second-best, hoping it would turn into something better. But by the time of his divorce—both of them, the one from Lureen and the one that really counted, from Ennis—he’d known what he wanted. 

Watching a baseball game on TV. 

Washing and waxing a truck.

Laughing over mosquito bites. 

Spending a Friday night in Taos doing nothing in particular.

Just living life every day, seeking nothing special except the most special thing of all, and that was what Ennis had denied him all those years. 

He was still wound up about the Barton sale and felt like he could go out and get another ten ranchers to hand over their stock, but the days when he jumped at every chance to go on the road were gone for good. At the end of the working hours, he wanted to go home. His wandering ways led him back to Eagle Nest, to Ennis, every time. 

Ennis, who maybe when he heard Jack’s news would say that thing again, how it should be Jack running the business and not some prickly son-of-a-bitch. Ennis would come up with his own Ennis-way of congratulating, and Jack had some ideas in that direction too.

Jack leaned forward and tried to rub a spot off the window, so he could have a clear view of the sky and the mountains. The only problem with the celebrating idea was that Ennis wouldn’t be there when he got home tonight. Having Ennis more than usual the last little while—not just the pretty damn good weekend but the week before that too—made him sigh to think of going back to not-much-Ennis-at-all. Some old lady living north of Red River was selling a horse that sounded suited for their back pasture, so Ennis was leaving straight from the Cross B ranch to take a look. He’d probably bring the gelding home in his trailer, and it would be past dark before the horse was unloaded and settled in the new stall. His fellow would be hungry and tired by the time he got in. 

Even though Jack couldn’t help but get riled up about it sometimes, damn, he hoped this horse training thing worked out. It would be so good. It would cause Ennis to stand taller in the world and make his Wyoming man think he was on more equal footing with everybody else. Jack had heard him say stuff like he was nothing but a no-good cowhand, didn’t have any schooling, had never had opportunities, and it grieved him to think Ennis held himself low because of it. When he finally—

“Jack?” 

By some miracle he didn’t jump. He turned away from the window where he’d been staring into space, thinking thoughts he didn’t want to share. 

“It’s past noon. You must not have lunch plans,” Corliss said.

Automatically, he dropped into talking-to-the-boss mode, dredging up half-a-smile. “Not today. Thought I’d eat at my desk.”

“Not going on a sales call with a client? That’s always a good use of a meal.”

Nothing was ever good enough with this guy. How come Jack had lived with his type all his life? “Nope,” was all he said.

“Then come with me to the St. James. They’ve opened their restaurant, and I want to check it out.”

Jack knew a command performance when he heard one. “Sure thing,” he said, listening to his own words, hearing them as an echo from years past. Wasn’t he supposed to be starting things new here in New Mexico? 

He reached for his hat. 

All sorts of work was being done on the St. James hotel, readying it for reopening as a historic hotel that the citizens of Cimarron hoped would bring in tourists. There was still scaffolding around half the old building. Two guys were up there working on the brick, and cement dust was everywhere. Corliss sneezed without covering up, as if he had some special exemption from spreading germs, after they parked across the street and got out of the Jeep that the boss had driven with no comment. Jack didn’t say anything either, but he couldn’t help but check the odometer. Too many miles.

The south end of the first floor was pretty much finished, where the restaurant was. They stepped from the bright sunlight into the dark, cool lobby, and a woman standing behind a counter that could’ve come from a western movie looked up at them with a big smile. 

“Mr. Hamilton,” she cooed. “How nice of you to visit us on our very first day. Can I show you a table for lunch?”

“Two of us.”

Jack trailed Corliss across newly-refinished wood floors that still creaked under their steps. The St. James had seen plenty of outlaws staying inside its walls a hundred years ago, as well as fistfights that might have tumbled down the broad wooden stairs. More than one man, he’d read in the local paper, had been shot dead in his bed here, when he was taken unawares. 

All that stuff had occurred in the lawless days of the Maxwell land grant. Nothing like that would happen here now, although Jack wondered what was going on. Corliss had barely reacted to the Barton news, had acted like it was expected. When Jack thought of it, that was probably right. He doubted Corliss had a sudden, friendly desire for his company, when he was the employee who supposedly couldn’t put an ad in the paper on time. Or who’d called the Corliss’s bluff on the so-called privileges the bossman should have, driving the vehicles all over the place. Hell, he hadn’t known what he was doing, horning in where Corliss wanted nobody. 

The hostess led them into the one big room that was the restaurant, showing off paneled wood walls and a high painted ceiling with lazy fans circling. She took them to a table by a big picture window that would someday show a fine view of one of Cimarron’s few streets. But for now it revealed a cement mixing machine and two muscled Mexican laborers, stripped to the waist, working on forms that would become a sidewalk. Jack barely had the chance to register their sweat-streaked bodies before Corliss complained. 

“I don’t want to be staring at them while I eat. Find us another table.”

From a table in a shadowed corner of the room, away from the few other diners, Jack ordered a hamburger and french fries, and Corliss asked for a club sandwich. As the waitress walked away with Corliss watching the sway of her hips, the boss said, “I’ll take care of the check. For a job well done.” 

Jack picked up his napkin and shook it out to cover his surprise. “Thanks.” He waited while the waitress disappeared through a doorway and Corliss brought his attention back to him. That was probably not a good thing, but there was no way Jack could avoid it.

“I believe I made a mistake with you.” Corliss stopped to reach for the sweating glass of water in front of him. Jack watched while he drank from it in the same deliberate way he did all things. When he put it back down on the table, the water was half gone. 

Jack transferred his gaze from the glass back to Corliss. 

“You’re wondering what kind of mistake, aren’t you? We hired you for vehicle management and a fill-in lower management position. But your natural talents in sales have been of great benefit. You’ve been spending perhaps forty percent of your time on that. Maybe fifty?” 

He found his voice. “About that.” 

“I was going to hire a full-time salesman at the end of the year. But now it looks like I can put that off, the way you’re producing.” 

“Okay,” seemed a safe thing to say. “That’s probably a good thing for the bottom line.”

“I’ve noticed your flexibility. That’s important. And your discretion. For example, you understandably mentioned the mileage on the Jeep to me. But you haven’t said anything about the group in the stable this morning.”

Jack thought he was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. “I think that’s your business and not mine.” 

“Very true. Although if you ever wish to join in our altruistic activities, you have only to say the word. I do try to keep business and other ventures separated as much as possible. But as you noticed, there is some unavoidable overlap.

“The question is how to reward you for stepping up where you were needed. A five dollar lunch hardly seems adequate for your efforts. I’ve decided to give you a raise effective August 1. Another ten thousand dollars a year. You’ve made a valuable contribution to Tulip Feedlot, Jack, and I’d like to make sure you know you’re appreciated.”

No way Jack had expected a raise, and surely not ever such a big one. He stared at Corliss feeling like he’d been smacked in the head. Ten thousand dollars. He sure could use it. Ennis couldn’t pretend it didn’t exist like the money Jack had socked away from the divorce settlement. And it looked like he’d been wrong about not being well-regarded at work, because Corliss had a genuine smile on his face. Although maybe that was because of how Jack was sitting dumb like a stump.

Yeah, that must have been what Corliss was thinking, because he asked, amusement making his voice rich, “Cat got your tongue, Jack Twist?”

“I…. No. I mean…. Thanks. I wasn’t expecting….” 

“One of the benefits of being the boss,” Corliss said, “is surprising deserving employees with small tokens of appreciation. Your reaction is among the best.”

Jack ran a hand over his face. “Glad I could give you some cause for amusement. I’m just doing my job.” 

“Perhaps. I’d like you to emphasize sales responsibilities from now on.”

“I can do that.”

“Good. Had you made any plans for pursuing further prospects?”

Not really, but Jack was able to think on his feet. “I’ll concentrate on the local ranches. That way we can cut down on the travel costs for us and the cattle transportation costs for them.”

“So long as we continue to fill up the pens, I have no objection to however you accomplish it. Although you’re a single man with no family responsibilities, so if you do need to travel, that should not be a problem.”

It sure was a problem to him. “To be honest with you, too many overnight stays aren’t appealing to me.” 

“We’ll deal with that when we come to it. Now, have you talked yet with James about the pen rotation? When will the first group arrive?”

He spent the rest of the lunch talking business, mainly scheduling, not letting down his guard but speaking more easily than he ever thought he would to the bastard general manager of Tulip Feedlot. It wasn’t until two that afternoon, when Jack was behind the wheel of his own truck heading north to the Barton ranch, that he thought how now he really did have good news to share with the important people in his life: Bobby. Lureen. Yeah, and that fellow he always wanted to go home to. 

*****

On Tuesday, the early morning sky stopped Ennis halfway between his truck and the lower stable. He stopped and shaded his eyes to look west, where the tops of the mountains seemed to be cutting into the sky like it was as solid a thing as the rocks. A man didn’t see a blue that clear, that definite but a few times in his life. Or maybe just in dreams. 

The night before as Ennis had stood next to the bed pulling off his sweat-stained work clothes, Jack had asked him whether he dreamed in color or black and white. What a damn fool question to put to a man who was practically asleep standing up. He hadn’t been able to lay his body down fast enough, cause it’d been a fucking hard day where it seemed everything took twice as long as it needed to, a day that had lasted long into the evening when he should have been able to come back home to Jack way earlier. He’d said he didn’t know and flopped onto his back. Probably fell asleep a minute later.

Now that Ennis thought on it, he sure had seen his daddy that last time in technicolor. Aiming at the deer with his red eyes. Guess he always did dream in rainbows. He’d tell Jack that tonight. 

Samson stood still the way he’d been schooled as Ennis saddled him and heaved himself up. With Samson being seventeen hands high, only a quarter inch from seventeen and a half hands, he required a stretch even for Ennis’s long legs to get onboard. No way Ennis would use the pansy-ass mounting block, though.

He clucked to get them moving up toward the far pasture, and like the good horse he was, Samson started out eagerly. Twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes at a fast walk, moving uphill all the way, would get them to where the three-year olds were feeding. That gray with the swollen hock concerned him. Ennis wanted to check the horse first thing before anything else was done that day.

The far-off sound of clashing gears brought his attention down to the black line that was Highway 38. Not one but two big trucks were heading south toward town. There Highway 64 turned southwest toward Taos or east toward Cimarron, up to Raton, and across the Colorado state line to Trinidad. Or a man could follow the road farther east into Texas, if that’s what he wanted to do. Amarillo. Childress. San Antonio.

Ennis rubbed his left hand up and down on his thigh as Samson picked his way across the rocky land. His thoughts had been circling Texas the last little while, around those wrong persons of Jack’s, like a buzzard that had spotted something maybe dying but was careful in checking it out. 

Samson’s ears flicked back toward him as if he’d said something, and Ennis reached to scratch under the mane. The horse’s warmth against his hand was a comfort. 

“I don’t know all about you either, what happened before I bought you? I don’t know that I need to. It’s enough that I found you, that you’re fine now.”

It turned out that the gray filly was okay. When twenty minutes later Ennis dismounted to catch her and tie her by the paddock fence, there wasn’t any heat in the hock and the swelling was way down. That meant one less trip to schedule with the vet, good since he was trying to save Rocky and BJ’s money like it was his own. There was no need to call the expensive medicines out when a dose of common sense would do as well. 

Ennis ran his hand along the filly’s spine, from withers all the way to her thick white tail, and she didn’t mind his touch. This was one fine looking animal, named Copenhagen, in that funny way the family had of naming their animals for places. By the time Ennis was through with her, and she was through growing, he expected her to fetch a good price in the auction ring. One down in Santa Fe or Albuquerque or even Ruidoso, a lot fancier than the ones he was hanging around near Eagle Nest. She’d go for thousands of dollars, fifteen or maybe even twenty Rocky was hoping, with great bloodlines to recommend her. It gave Ennis pause now and then to consider that his training of her would add considerably to such a high-priced horse. The Buckminsters were paying him well, but each time he took one of the three-year-olds under saddle, he was putting value in them. If it worked out the way they all expected, anyway.

A fly landed on Copenhagen’s shoulder, and her skin there shuddered at the touch. Ennis reached to push it away. So he was looking that way when there was movement over by the storage shed that he’d helped put up himself, far from the main stable and the foaling operation but convenient for the high pasture. Nothing should be moving over there. 

His eyes narrowed, because that distance away even his good far-seeing had trouble making out what it was. Wasn’t a coon, wasn’t a coyote…. Bigger. A mountain lion? There were still some cougars around in northern New Mexico, he’d been told. Keeping his hand on the horse, he moved around her, a few steps closer and up onto higher ground.

More moving from a blotch of dark. The shed was still in shadow, blocked from the rising sun by a raggedy ridge. Then the dark unfolded itself. A person who’d been bent over stood up straight by the front door of the shed. What the hell? Some man was there, but it was only now coming up eight o’clock, and no Buckminster family member was likely to be at the back end of their property close to where the mountains rose up strong. And Ennis was the only hand who worked early in the morning. 

There was feed stored in the shed, supplements, some rope and tools, old halters, nothing worth all that much but still of use to those keeping the Cross B Ranch going. He couldn’t figure why somebody would want to steal any of it, but then, even as low as he’d been brought a time or two, it had never got so bad that he didn’t have a job or any prospects with little girls to feed. He remembered the break-ins that had been reported in the newspaper. 

Ennis stood divided, not knowing which way to approach the situation, but then he figured he couldn’t sneak up on the guy anyway, with the sight lines being clear. He untied the gray and swatted her on the rump to get her back with the other horses. Then he took Samson’s reins and was up in the saddle with one move. A clap of his heels to the horse’s flanks and they were flying toward whatever was going on over there. 

They hadn’t gone but thirty yards when whoever it was must have heard the pounding of hooves. The intruder glanced with some fear over his shoulder, every line of his body showing he was surprised, but Ennis relaxed and pulled Samson back down to a walk. He was getting worked up over nothing. It was just Tag. 

The boy stayed stock still, watching him get closer, until finally he raised one hand in a half-assed wave. Ennis might have smiled some at how uncertain Tag looked, except he was annoyed at how he’d been fooled. He must have appeared like a dumbass, riding like he was the Lone Ranger over what was only the boss’s son on his own land. 

He pulled up in the patch of bare dirt in front of the pre-fab shed, but he didn’t know what to say. 

“Hi, Ennis,” the boy offered, and then he gave a fake grin that wouldn’t fool anybody, for sure not Ennis. 

“Hi, yourself. It’s not like you, coming to work early.”

“More like getting in late. Don’t tell mom on me, okay?”

No way, cause he was the queer hired hand tiptoeing around the place. He had no intention of criticizing the owners’ son and bringing attention to himself. Besides, one glance at those bloodshot eyes and he guessed BJ would figure out what was going on. Tag looked like he’d been out all night, not doing good deeds for the Salvation Army. 

“Not for me to say. I thought you were a cougar. Lucky I didn’t have my rifle with me and shoot first, ask questions later.”

“Come on, Ennis, you wouldn’t shoot me. Besides, you’d likely miss.”

“I don’t miss what I aim for. What are you doing up here?”

“I was coming in from Jerry’s place.” Tag pointed to the path that traced the foothills, the one Ennis figured went from town all the way past the Buckminsters, his and Jack’s place, and then up to Wheeler Peak. “There’s a back way you can use that takes you—”

“I know it.” 

“Uh, Dad wanted me to do an inventory of that Feed-Rite grain we bought the other month, and I remembered we’d put some up here. I thought I’d get it done now since I was passing by here on my way back to the house.” The boy took a breath and then said in a rush, “Fuck, Ennis, it’s not any of your business.”

If he expected Ennis to react to him being talked to that way, he would wait a long time. “I ain’t saying… I mean, I’m not saying that it is my business. Were you riding your horse or do you need a lift home? Samson’ll take both of us easy.”

“No, that’s all right. I’ve got Tokyo ground-tied around there.” Tag waved vaguely over toward a rock outcropping. 

“Okay then.” Ennis touched his hat and then reined Samson back around the way he’d come. But before they started toward the other end of the pasture, he said, “I’ve found drinking plenty of water helps when the hangover’s pounding.”

The boy looked confused. “Uh, sure. Thanks.” 

Ennis rode away with a frown on his face. He didn’t believe there’d been any inventory going on. More likely Tag was using the shed to store booze or pot away from where his folks might come across it. Floyd might be interested in knowing about this, but Ennis wasn’t of a mind to rat on Tag. The kid was restless like his mom had said. When Ennis had been seventeen, he’d sure known the taste of cheap whiskey. Two years after that, him and Jack, they’d been drunk on it that first time, and if not for the booze, would he ever have done what he did that night? 

It seemed he owed something to strong liquor. It could be he owed it to Tag to let him find his own lessons from it.

*****

He still hadn’t found any comfortable way to stand when BJ was around, and he resented that. She was just some woman, after all, with a husband and kids and a ranch to run, now with orders for him that he had to follow, no matter that they were put to him more like he’d be doing her a big favor. 

Lately he’d been taking his lunch under a tree that was halfway up the slope to the foaling barn. He’d watched while she walked up to him, her stumpy figure having a hard time at a few of the steeper places. He’d stood up, his sandwich still in his hand, shifting from one foot to the other. The little fella was in tow, as usual. One thing he had to say for her, she did right by Davey. 

It turned out BJ and Rocky would be tied up that afternoon, though he barely listened to some explanation about taking the boy into town. The family’s private life wasn’t his business, after all. But because they’d be gone, Rocky couldn’t deliver the two horses he’d promised by 3 p.m. 

“Normally we’d ask Floyd to take them. He’s done it for us before. But maybe you’ve noticed that his eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I’m concerned with him driving the trailer, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Especially since he’s helping us with Frank still gone.”

That was a woman for you, them and their feelings, always walking around aiming to get in the right spot that wouldn’t hurt a person any. Cassie had been like that. But most times there wasn’t a right spot, and a man wanted to hear things straight out.

“So, would you go with him? You drive. I’ll tell him that we want you to have the experience of delivering the horses, since you haven’t done it before for us.”

And what would she tell Floyd? That they couldn’t trust the new man—oh, yeah, did you know he was queer?—so would Floyd go with Ennis and make sure the customer didn’t notice him much?

Ennis touched his hat. Sure thing, he told her. He’d take care of it, not to worry. She looked up at him uncertainly, and he figured he hadn’t been able to keep the hard edge off his words. 

“Okay,” she said, and took herself off and the young one with her, though not before Davey did what he always did these days, hug Ennis’s leg and say his name. 

It was better going with Floyd.

There wasn’t anything wrong with Floyd’s eyesight that Ennis could tell as they loaded the two older mares into the trailer. BJ was over-reacting, like an old biddy. Taking the time out of the afternoon for this, practically all the afternoon hours, meant other things around the ranch wouldn’t get done. As Ennis pulled himself into the cab of his truck, he thought that she’d better understand that. He wasn’t prepared to stay late that day, not with the long hours he’d put in the day before, even if they hadn’t all been for the ranch. It wasn’t fair to Jack or to him.

As they turned onto the road, Floyd looked around at the interior of the Ram with some approval. “You’ve got a nice truck here. Rocky said you’d just bought it?” 

Ennis had already grown accustomed to Floyd’s ways from working with him each afternoon. Aguilar might be old and concern himself with other people’s business, but he had some sense to him. And he wasn’t mad at the world like some of the dried-out ranch hands Ennis had known in Wyoming. So he said, yeah, the truck was new to him and it seemed okay. 

“What kind of mileage do you have on this?” 

“Ninety-two thousand.” 

Floyd whistled. “It rides fine for that. There’s a good sound to that engine. It still has good shocks too, I can tell. Where’d you get it? Myers Ford on the east side of Taos always has a big selection of trucks.”

“Over by Cimarron.” 

Floyd nodded like that was a fine answer. “I hope that Rocky will pay you for gas on this trip. It’s a way to go.” 

Ennis was aware. They’d drive south by Angel Fire to the county line past Black Lake, and then follow the two lane black-top southeast to where the ranch was a little ways past a town called El Turquillo. It’d take more than an hour one way. He’d put on his glasses and looked at the map to get his bearings, as he’d never been into Mora County before. 

The first part of the trip was mainly south on 64, past big Eagle Nest Lake that was crowded with men fishing and millionaires sailing boats on the water. It was another cloudless summer day. The baked-asphalt hot air came blowing in on them from their open windows, along with the road noise, but that was Ennis’s preference. He drove carefully, aware of the weight of the horses behind him, but he’d had plenty of experience with all the times he’d hauled horses into the mountains for him and Jack. This might be different, since it was a big four-wheeled trailer, but he’d driven cattle trucks loaded with thirty heifers. Not that BJ or Rocky had ever asked him. 

They kept going south toward the town of Angel Fire, the big sister to smaller Eagle Nest, where folks from the city came for the winter skiing, he’d been told. The valley was still eight miles wide or more at this point, with the road cutting through closer to the west edge of the mountains that framed the flat green land, good for farming and ranching. As they got closer to Angel Fire he could see the white slash on the slopes where trees had been felled for the skiing, and the dots of ski lodges here and there. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel with tourists around in the winter. He wondered if any would find their way to Eagle Nest. 

It occurred to him that Floyd knew what it was like to have the tourists about, since he’d lived in the area for a long time. He glanced over at him, but the old man was staring out the side window intently. While Ennis watched, he made the sign of the cross, forehead, then chest, then one shoulder, and finally the other. Ennis looked past him and a sign flashed by: _New Mexico Vietnam Veterans Memorial._ He’d not figured Floyd for a religious man. He must be Catholic, crossing himself like that. Then again, a lot of the baseball players he saw on TV from south of the border did the same thing every time they came to bat, and Ennis had never figured they were church-going men. More like they were superstitious. 

Floyd looked straight at him and caught his eyes before Ennis could glance away. 

“You’re wondering why I did that.”

Ennis shifted on the bench seat, directing his attention to the speedometer. “It’s your business.”

Floyd folded his arms across his blue plaid shirt. “It’s everybody’s business, to make sure we don’t get this country in another mess like Vietnam. I lost my son there.” 

Ennis winced. He couldn’t imagine it and wouldn’t let his thoughts make that particular to his girls. A man’s children, they were precious, his connection with the future. 

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Wiley was only nineteen. He died in a helicopter accident in 1968, outside Saigon.” 

Ennis had been married the whole time he’d needed to be concerned about the draft, but he remembered the day when it occurred to him that maybe he hadn’t heard from Jack because the army had got him. Alma had asked him why he stood at the window looking out on the heavy winter sky instead of sitting down to eat.

“I nearly drank myself to death over the next few years.” Floyd said that like it was ordinary conversation. When Ennis didn’t say anything in reply, he asked, “You don’t believe me?”

“It’s not that. You don’t seem the type.”

“What’s the type?”

Ennis shrugged. Him, for one, given bad enough news. 

“Wiley was my only son, my only child. His mother ran off when he was ten, so it was just the two of us. Back then, I made a good living, selling feed all over northern New Mexico. He’d stay with my sister when I was out of town, but he traveled with me in the summertime. Those are the best memories…. But I never appreciated that enough. Do you have children?”

“Two girls. They’re up in Wyoming.”

“Do you tell them that you love them?”

He didn’t need advice. “They know.” 

“I never told Wiley I loved him.” Floyd shook his head. “It wasn’t the manly thing to do, father to son. I was really different back then, before I lost him. A man’s man. Even when he left for ‘Nam, I didn’t hug him, I clapped him on the back and said that he should do me proud. Can you imagine it? Saying that he should do me proud. What an idiot I was.” 

“Wouldn’t call you an idiot now.” 

“That’s what four years living in the bottle after he died did for me. My sister got me out of it, into AA. I live a better way now. Not very exciting, and I don’t make the money like I did years ago, but that doesn’t matter.” 

A couple more miles hummed under the Ram’s wheels. They’d about reached the far end of the valley, with the mountains to either side coming in close. The hot air blew in on them and Floyd stayed mostly quiet. Ennis began to think he’d put on the radio when the truck gave a little wobble, barely enough to get his attention. He straightened it out with no problem, but the wheel was harder to turn than it should be. 

“Shit,” he said under his breath. He checked the rearview mirror that showed the trailer doing okay, with the horses looking calm. 

Another wobble. 

“Gonna pull over,” Ennis said. 

The road had almost no shoulder to speak of, but there was a stretch of level brushland to the side a couple hundred yards ahead. Ennis eased up on the accelerator, set his work boot to the brake, and knew by the time the truck came to a stop that his left front tire had gone flat. 

He got out and looked at it, gave it a kick that wasn’t hardly even a touch, and pushed his hat back on his head. Beside him, Floyd was down on his knees, one hand laid on the rubber. 

“You must have run over a nail. These tires look almost new.”

“They are. Less than ten thousand miles on them. Damn, I’ve got bad luck with tires.”

Floyd looked up at him. “Why do you say that?”

“Second flat this year,” he said reluctantly. “At least this time it’s not freezing cold and sleeting. Come on, let’s see if we can get to the spare without unhitching.”

Ennis figured that they probably could, but he decided he didn’t want to try. If they’d been his animals, he would have. But he was responsible for these Buckminster mares, and even though it would take more time and effort, he would make sure they came to no harm. Floyd accepted his decision with a nod, like Ennis was the boss. Which he was, though that still didn’t seem real. They unhitched the trailer and drove the truck forward a few feet, with Ennis hoping nothing would happen to his tire rim. There wasn’t any other way, though. 

The horses didn’t look kindly on what was happening. One of them in particular, a smallish chestnut, started banging around in the trailer. It wasn’t good to hear her hooves connect with the metal. 

“I’ll go take care of her,” Floyd said. 

And that’s what he did. Floyd did get talkative sometime, but when there was work to be done he got right down to it. Ennis didn’t mind that he was along. Even when the chestnut tried to rear, Ennis didn’t feel the need to interfere. Floyd wasn’t broken down even if he was near seventy. There were broad shoulders on that man.

By the time Floyd came back to him, Ennis had the spare out and the jack in position. He was working on the lug nuts when Floyd crouched next to him. 

“She’s settled down now. How’s it going?”

“Okay.” The third nut came off without him straining at it too hard.

“I hope they’re not on too tight. They can be a bitch to get off sometime.”

“Yeah, that’s what happened last time.” Ennis had no good memories of that night outside Childress. At least now not a single vehicle had passed them, and one wasn’t likely to, either. 

“Was that when you lived in Wyoming? You said it was snowing.”

He could feel the ice cutting into his face, see the headlights flashing through the night, hear Duncan’s voice accusing Jack of having a faggot friend along with him. Jack had said no, but it was the truth, one that Ennis had tried hard to force himself to own up to. But he had no way been ready to do that. 

In some ways things had changed a lot since that night. Other ways, maybe not so much. 

He turned the tire iron and another nut loosened. He twisted it with his fingers to get it off the bolt and said, “That was February, when I was in Texas.” There were only two more to go. “I was with this friend of mine. Jack.” He stopped to wipe the sweat off his face on the sleeve of his shirt, so no way could Floyd tell how hard it had been to say that name out loud, in an ordinary way. “It was his truck. A brand new F-150 with tires that should have held up better than they did. One shredded all to pieces when it blew.”

“Did you hit anything? Anybody get hurt?”

“Naw.” The next-to-last lug nut was giving him a hard time. “Jack was driving, and he did okay.” Better than Ennis had done, standing against men who wanted to smash their faces in cause of them being queer. 

“You were lucky.”

Ennis grunted. He doubted Floyd would say that if he knew the story of his sorry life, how he’d messed up bad hurting so many people, not least himself. And being queer wasn’t any picnic, either, with no luck involved. None good, anyway.

Then again…. Shaking Jack’s hand outside Aguirre’s office, that counted as something, didn’t it?

“I’d say a little luck, a little good driving on Jack’s part.” He looked sidelong at the old Indian, with the blue bandanna that he normally wore around his head streaked now with a line of grease. Ennis’s mouth was dry, cause of the fucking hot weather and too much talking that, once begun, he intended to finish. “You remind me of him sometimes.”

“How’s that?”

“Always flapping your mouths.”

Floyd chuckled at that, though Ennis didn’t see there was much to be amused at. 

Floyd had the spare ready to slip on even before Ennis got finished taking the flat off, and after that it didn’t take long to get things back together again, though they had to work carefully to get the trailer hitched securely. Less than twenty minutes after they’d pulled over they were on the road again.

The valley mainly disappeared as the road rose up and went through a pass, with big pine trees nodding to each side. Then down it went toward Black Lake, where no more than fifty people might live in little houses that looked like they’d blow over in a stiff wind. The lake was nowhere in sight, just a dirt road with a sign pointing toward where it must be. This was as far south as Ennis had driven in the previous months. One day early on, before he’d got his horses going, he’d gone exploring in the Ford with Jack. 

“Keep going across the county line. Then bear right to stay on State Road 434,” Floyd told him.

“I know that.” 

Floyd held up both his hands like he was pushing against air. Maybe he could tell Ennis was feeling a mite raw. “Okay, okay.” 

El Turquillo turned out to be a group of houses, a gas station, and a post office, easy to miss if a man blinked. Ennis drove through it and looked for the turn-off to Sanger Ranch, like BJ had told him. When he found it, the washboard road past the cattle guard was nearly three miles long. It took him a good fifteen minutes and a string of curses to bring the trailer safely to the dusty ranch house. 

The rancher was waiting for them when they drove up. Ennis got out and said howdy, but it was Floyd who provided a bunch of Spanish words that Ennis didn’t follow one bit. There was some gesturing in his direction, the word “foreman” was used, and the rancher nodded like he had no trouble believing it. Floyd stepped back, and the rest of the time Ennis talked to the rancher, who had good English after all. 

They got the horses unloaded with no trouble from the chestnut, settled them in a paddock that Ennis judged had good drainage, and then were offered cans of soda pop before they left. If that was how business was done in New Mexico, Ennis wouldn’t say no. They drank the Cokes while standing on the front porch. The view provided good evidence that the land was not much good for more than ranching. It was flat and as dry as the drive had made Ennis’s throat. Eventually, the rancher got the check to pay for the mares. He handed it to Ennis, who tucked it into his shirt pocket and then snapped it closed. 

Deal done, they drove off down the road, the empty trailer rattling behind them, the sun pounding down no help to the sweat they’d worked up. But Ennis didn’t mind. Those conditions came with the job, and he didn’t mind delivering the horses either, not really. 

Back through El Turquillo they went, the long stretch of road seeming to shiver in the heat. New Mexico wasn’t much different in some ways from Wyoming, Ennis thought, though the wind didn’t blow so hard. But when they crossed the county line, passed Black Lake, and then went up and through the pass to start descending into the narrow space of green, getting wider, then wider still, then whole miles wide with grass seeming to spill out from between the fingers of the mountains—New Mexico seemed a lot different from Wyoming. It was nothing like Ennis had known from his life before. Over the last months, though, it was growing familiar. Lifting a man’s spirits as the mountains pulled back and yet were still there, watching but congenial, as if there was room for good things to happen in the valley, for the grass to grow tall and the stock to grow strong. Ennis didn’t think much of where they’d delivered the horses, but where him and Jack had settled, all by accident, all cause of one talk he’d had with a man holding a horse back at the Fort Worth stock show, well, that seemed a good place to be. 

When they came up again to Angel Fire, Ennis figured it wouldn’t kill him to say something. “You were pretty good with the horses back there.”

“I like all animals,” Floyd said. “You should come by my place and see sometime. I’ve got a menagerie right now.” 

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh. People bring me animals they find, dogs that have been hit on the road, cats that were too curious for their own good. I even get some birds. I nurse them back to health, and then I try to find them homes. Some of them end up staying with me.”

“So, you’re like some cat lady?”

Floyd chuckled. “I hope not. I keep things neat, and most of the animals live outdoors, not in the house. I don’t take in more than I can deal with.”

Ennis thought of the coyote he’d shot the other week, and how he’d feel more comfortable having a dog around to show his teeth at anybody wanting to come after the two queers. And he’d not known a horse who didn’t mind some cat keeping it company in the stable. 

“You got any you looking to get rid of now?” 

“I might. I live out on Huggins Road, you know where that is?”

“Past Maudie’s on 38, right?”

“Go east a mile and I’m the place with the big yellow weathervane on the roof of the house. Why don’t you come out sometime and take a look? 

“I might do that.” Maybe he should ask Jack what he thought. He was aware that Jack favored dogs. He’d had to leave one in Childress. 

The Vietnam memorial came into sight, and Ennis watched to see what Floyd would do. Like it wasn’t anything that marked him out from the ordinary, the old man did what he’d done before, made the sign of the cross on himself. Then he gave Ennis a smile. A small one, sort of sad, but nonetheless it was a real smile. 

“I’ve got a dog looking for a home right now. You might want to check it out some day.” 

Ennis turned his full attention back to the road. Floyd was a character, that was for sure.

*****

That night Jack got home before him, and when Ennis walked into the kitchen after parking behind the F-150, the smell of burgers sizzling on the stove made him realize he was hungry. It seemed they were cooking themselves, though, with nobody around. Ennis went over, saw they were in need of flipping, and did that. 

“Jack?” he called. He touched the oven door. It was warm. 

“Be there in a minute,” came from the direction of the bedroom. 

Jack came out while Ennis was washing up at the kitchen sink. He was wearing a pair of jeans that had seen better days, a too-small black t-shirt that said _Childress Middle School PTA_ in orange letters, and crummy white sneakers. He went to the stove and poked at the burgers with one finger. 

“If you ever wear those clothes to work, you’re likely to get some stares.” Ennis shook the water from his hands and grabbed a towel.

Jack looked down at himself and smirked. “Marge would get all worried and motherly. She’d likely offer to drive me to the local Goodwill store.” 

“Nothing wrong with Goodwill.” 

“I’m not saying that there is, just that we don’t have that need. Don’t you think it’s time you quit pretending we’re ready for the poorhouse? We’re doing okay.”

Ennis wouldn’t feel comfortable until he had a million dollars in the bank, and that wouldn’t happen any time soon. “I’m still thinking on Junior’s car. I’ll sending some to Jenny too, though she doesn’t need wheels. She’ll have something else she’ll need.” 

Jack bent over the oven with a towel in his hand. He pulled out a tray of the kind of french fries that baked instead of fried. “How much are you thinking of sending them?” 

“I don’t know. As much as I can. For sure I’ve got eight hundred. It’s the least I can do since I’m not footing the bill for the schools. Are those ready to eat?”

Ennis preferred it when he got home first and could do the cooking. It usually happened that way. Figuring out what to eat and getting it set up gave him some time between his Buckminster work and his horse training work, time he needed for a breather. Then Jack would come waltzing in like he owned the place—instead of leasing—and they’d sit down, shoot the breeze, eat food that most often was passable, and after all that was done Ennis would force himself up and out to the stable. Some days were harder than others to do that last part, and when Jack got home first it was always one of the harder days. He imagined Jack thought he was doing Ennis some favor, getting dinner going. Maybe he thought Ennis minded because kitchen work was women’s work, but that wasn’t the case. What he wanted or maybe even needed was that quiet time between jobs, and Jack sitting at the table like he was some north pole Ennis could aim at. 

So after they ate, Ennis scraped his chair against the floor as he pushed back and asked, “You got any cigarettes around here?” It was a stupid way of putting off what he knew he had to do—the horses were waiting on him. Five minutes wouldn’t make any difference to them, but it might to him, just to get settled. 

“I thought you were trying to quit. You keep going back and forth like a yo-yo.” 

“One won’t hurt. You got any?”

“Sure.” Jack disappeared into the bedroom and Ennis heard the sound of a drawer opening. Jack had put the queer man’s porn in one of those dresser drawers. They’d only looked at it that once, then lived off the effects over the weekend, playing around like they were nineteen again. He wondered what would happen if Jack came around the corner with _Stallion_ in his hands along with the cigarettes, and a thrill he was familiar with made his dick stir. He shifted in his chair and stared down at the Ore-Ida french fries he’d not finished eating. He didn’t particularly want to feel that way cause of the magazine. For Jack, yeah, sure, but…. He didn’t want to be just some other queer, getting all hot and bothered over dirty pictures. 

“I got half a pack left.” Jack sat down, put a cigarette in his mouth, and lit it. He handed it over and then lit another for himself. They sat there, chairs pushed back, legs spread, knees practically touching the way they almost always did, at two adjoining sides of the table, maybe cause of all those weeks in the wilderness when they’d got used to sitting side by side. Despite his old clothes, maybe cause of them, Jack looked like a porn star refugee in Ennis’s eyes, fucking good in his sight. They smoked for a while without saying anything. The smoke made Ennis’s eyes water. 

Jack blew out a cloud of blue. “I’ve got something to tell you about work.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I didn’t expect it.”

“Everything okay?”

“Sure.”

“Then why are you looking serious? Nobody died, right?”

Jack straightened his leg and kicked Ennis on the shin, not too hard. “You’ve got a bad sense of humor.”

“I never claimed to be a comedian. So, something happen today?”

“Yesterday. But you got in so late last night that I didn’t have a chance—”

“Everything went wrong yesterday, except at least I got the horse.”

“I know, I’m not blaming you. I know how these things go.”

“I figure.”

“Like I know you’ll go spend the rest of the daylight hours out back.”

Ennis pulled smoke deep into his chest and then turned his head to look out the window that showed the sunlight still plenty bright. The day hadn’t started to cool yet, and he’d be sweating again for sure. That was one reason he never bothered to change his clothes around dinnertime, like Jack was able to do. He let the smoke out, thinking on his man dressed the way he was now, sitting the way he was now, with the cigarette held low between his knees, getting his picture taken for _Stallion._

Ennis flicked a look Jack’s way. He wasn’t naked like the others in the magazine, but he sure made Ennis think naked thoughts. 

He had to stop that. A man didn’t get to move to a place him and Jack could call their own, more suited to better living, thinking like that.

“Yeah, the horses are calling. So, what did you want to say yesterday? Besides about dreaming in color.”

“You remember that?”

“I was tired, not deaf. I wanted to tell you I thought on it today, and yeah, I do dream that way. Why were you asking?” 

Jack shrugged. He tapped ash onto his dinner plate. “No reason. I was contemplating different kinds of dreams yesterday was all. You know how I don’t get along with the boss? Corliss?” 

“Nobody could.”

“Yeah, well, something funny happened yesterday. We went out to lunch—”

The telephone, over next to the refrigerator, rang out shrilly. 

“Damn,” Ennis said, and he stuck a finger in his ear. “We’ve got to turn that thing down. You gonna answer it?”

“What, you’re not worried it’s O’Hara asking about Fancy? You get it.”

Ennis threw Jack a look. He hadn’t known for sure Jack was aware of his thoughts on that subject. He hauled himself up and grabbed the phone off the wall. “Hello.” 

“Hello yourself, Del Mar. Just my lousy luck, getting you on the phone when I’m desperately calling for Jack.” 

Ennis didn’t even bother to answer back. He held out the phone at arm’s length and said, “Coach is after you.” 

Jack took it from him but said, “We’re not finished talking. You wait, I’ll be right off.”

Ennis sat himself back down. He took another drag on the cig but it didn’t appeal anymore, so he stubbed it out. Fucking not-donkey-dong calling at dinner time. He had little enough time to talk with Jack. They should make some rule about not answering the phone when they were eating. Especially when it was that guy calling.

“Calm down,” he heard Jack saying. “You’re talking so fast I—”

“Why are you—”

Jack listened. 

“This isn’t a good time. Let me call you back, okay?”

“Of course I’m willing to…. I won’t leave you hanging. Just give me fifteen minutes and I’ll—”

“I know I owe you. But you owe me too. You never would’ve even met Jeffrey if— Sorry, sorry, you’re right, I didn’t mean it that way. But I’ll call you right back if— Well, what is the number? It’s early in the day for you to be this drunk, you old beanpole. Why don’t you—”

That brought Ennis’s head up sharp, and he stared at how Jack was standing with his back turned to him. _Beanpole?_ This was the first time he’d ever thought…. Jack had been trying out those damn girlie names on him for months, and only now did he realize… his man’d had a name he called the coach. Not the same as what he was pinning on Ennis—sweetheart, light of my life, honeybunch—but close. Shit. Close. 

“How about if you tell me what happened from the start,” Jack was saying.

Jack listened some more.

“Okay. And then what happened?” 

Ennis frowned, looked at the clock, and stood up, the chair scraping behind him. Was this talk going to go on all night? He didn’t want to hear any more names like beanpole or cutie pie or worse. The best thing would be to stop any chance of it. 

“Jack, come on now, get off the phone.”

His man turned toward him and held up a finger.

“I know you helped me out when I needed it,” Jack said into the phone. “Moving into the house….. Yeah, you’re right, in other ways too. Back in those days when I was a mess. Like you are now, I’d say.” 

That was back when Ennis had been counting the hours until he met Jack at Pine Creek, not knowing that Jack was already making a different life for himself in Amarillo. He walked right up to Jack, close, and put his hand on the tangled phone cord. “I thought you had something to tell me? I don’t have all day.”

“Gary, listen…. For Christ’s sake, I know that Jeffrey…. But when he….”

Ennis could hear the coach’s voice coming from the receiver. He’d told Jack back in Texas, at the beginning of them aiming toward each other for real, that there couldn’t be any other men around once they got together. That was truth then and it was truth now. He wasn’t gonna take any of this shit. 

“Hang the damn thing up,” he growled. 

Jack said into the phone, “Hold on a minute, I’ll be right back,” put his hand over the receiver, and said quietly, “He’s in bad shape. I’ve got to talk to him.” 

“No, you don’t.”

“What?”

“I said, no, you don’t. You don’t need to talk to that shithead.”

Those eyebrows came down awful quick. “Yes, I do.”

“You can call him back.”

“You heard me talking to him, he’s not taking that for an…. I’ve got to talk to him now.”

“I thought you had something to tell me.”

“I do.”

“Well, then, go ahead.”

“Ennis,” Jack said, “you don’t have any reason to—”

“I sure as hell do. What happened at the feedlot?”

“It’s waited this fucking long while you went off on your damn horse buying trip, it can wait—”

“Damn horse trip?”

“You heard me.”

“I thought you said you under—”

“Understand where you got your priorities.”

“A man could say the same about you. You want to talk to me or—”

“Not when you’re being such an asshole that you—”

“You want to talk to me or to your fucking old boyfriend?”

That caused Jack to stare at him with a challenge Ennis didn’t care to see. “Don’t you give me an ultimatum like that,” he said, eyes sharp like knives.

“I don’t give a damn how many big words you use, go tell them to your college friend.”

It seemed Jack made a real effort to hold in his temper. “Look, I don’t want to have words with you, but—”

“Oh, real funny.” 

“Just wait fifteen or twenty minutes, and—”

“I don’t need to listen while you hold the coach’s hand. I got work to do.”

He grabbed his hat and opened up the door quick, not caring how it closed. On the way across the yard, his footsteps slowed even before he got halfway to the stable. How the hell had that happened so quick?

*****

He made sure it was hard dark outside before he turned his feet back to the house again, cause he wanted to make a point. He’d ask Jack if he’d given him enough time to babysit Shelborne through whatever gay man’s emergency he was going through. But he knew right away that he’d have no such chance. As he came around the stable from letting the horses out for the night he saw Jack’s truck was gone. 

Shit. The door to the house had been left unlocked, though. At least Jack hadn’t made a fool out of him that way. He turned the kitchen light on and looked around. First thing he saw was a piece of yellow paper on the table. 

_I’m At Stubbie’s In Town, Jack’s writing said.  
P.S.—Junior called. She probably wants to talk to you and not me all the time._

Damn, Jack had only talked to Junior twice. It wasn’t like Ennis wasn’t ever at home. 

He stared down at that paper. _Stubbie’s_ was the only dive in Eagle Nest, as _Zechariah’s_ or _The Cowboy Kitchen_ were more like family restaurants with nice bars attached. Ennis could call Junior and then go to bed while Jack was boozing it up. He could be sleeping when Jack stumbled in at 2 a.m. If he wanted to. 

Fifteen minutes later, after a shower and a change of clothes, his Ram pick-up was flying down the road toward town. _Stubbie’s_ gravel lot wasn’t lit too good, with only a handful of vehicles parked here and there in no particular order, making it look like the customers were drunk before they walked in the front door. 

The inside was dark the way such places should be, smoky, with rock music playing too loud. It had that sour, spilled beer smell too. Ennis stood by the door and looked it over. Bar to the left, with a pool table to the right, where Jack was bending over his cue stick. Some blond-haired youngster, surely not seen twenty-five yet, was standing by waiting his turn. At least Jack wasn’t wearing his not-fit-for-public clothes any more. That was a good thing. He looked respectable in one of his short-sleeved shirts with decent jeans. 

Over the sound of the music—might have been _Stairway to Heaven_ that even Ennis had heard before—he couldn’t hear the crack of the cue ball striking, but he saw that Jack missed the shot and mouthed what must have been a curse. Then he looked up and spotted Ennis. 

That was okay. He hadn’t come to the bar to drink alone. 

Jack came up to shaking-hands distance, but for a couple seconds they just looked at one another. Those blue eyes were the way only Jack’s eyes ever got, speaking a language Ennis never could translate into words but that he mostly understood anyhow. Jack wasn’t backing down this night, but he wasn’t making any effort to hide how he was pleased to see Ennis, either.

“Glad you could make it,” Jack said as their palms slid together. 

“Since you left the invitation so nice, I thought I’d show.”

“You doing all right?”

“About as well as you, I expect.” 

“Then we’re even. Why don’t you get a beer and come watch me play?”

“If there ain’t no other entertainment in this joint, that’d be good for a laugh.” 

He got a Bud cause he wanted to feel about as normal as apple pie, and then he took himself off to the pool table. Jack introduced him to “Danny…what did you say your last name was?”

“Smithson,” the youngster said as he shook Ennis’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Danny’s here cause he’s had a fight with his wife. He’s waiting out the storm before he goes home. I thought that was kind of funny, don’t you, Ennis?”

He wasn’t gonna call Jack a smartass in front of this Smithson, but he wanted to. 

“Nothing funny about it,” Danny said. “Let’s finish up this game, and then I’m going home to see if I can get to the make-up sex I’ve heard about. Jack, it’s your turn.”

The boy must have been thinking too much on his woman troubles, cause he went down with hardly any fight and left with a “see you around.” Jack stood by the side of the table chalking up his cue stick, looking at Ennis like it was the first time, or like he was measuring him in some way. “You want to play? Or you want to drink?”

Ennis put his beer down on the narrow shelf that ran along the back wall. “No reason a man can’t do both.” 

He reached into his pocket for a quarter and walked around to the side of the table where Jack was. “Call it in the air.”

“Heads.”

“Heads it is. You break. We’re playing eight ball.”

Ennis picked out a stick from the rack on the wall, sighted down it and saw it had a bad curve to it. He took another one, set it back, and then finally a third one before he was even half-satisfied. 

“If you’re looking for world-class equipment, you won’t find it here.”

“Just shut up and break.” 

Jack already had the balls set up. He bent over and shot so fast that a man had no chance to appreciate how good Jack’s ass looked with his jeans stretched over it like that. The number one ball dropped in the far corner pocket.

“I’ve got solids,” Jack announced. Ennis leaned back against the wall and sent his gaze around the one room that was really all there was to _Stubbie’s._ Only three other guys were there, two sitting at the bar and the bartender. The TV on the back counter was showing a bantamweight boxing match, maybe from Mexico, and the three of them were glued to it. Between that and the music that was still on, nobody was likely to catch what was being said, even from loudmouth Jack.

Jack walked around the table, checking out the angles and what might be his best shot. They’d only ever played together once before, and Ennis had won two games to one. He should have won that third game too. Now Jack was acting like he had a chance, that he was taking their play seriously. 

Jack pointed with his stick, calling his shot. “Three ball in the side pocket.” 

Damned if he didn’t make it too. Ennis wasn’t used to seeing this from Jack, being so determined over a game. Maybe distracting him would put him off the stroke.

“What did Junior want?” he asked as Jack went on the prowl around the table again. 

“What?”

“I said—”

“I heard you. She just wanted to talk to her daddy.”

“Everything okay with her?”

“You’ll have to call her back to find out. I’m not your fucking answering machine.”

“You’re the one who talked with her. She okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. She wasn’t crying, which Gary was.”

“You’re kidding. The coach was crying?”

“A time or two. He was falling down drunk too. I was on the phone with him for a solid hour. Jeffrey dumped—”

“Pipe down,” Ennis said, looking toward the bar. 

“Oh, yeah, I forgot, you’re not interested in my friends. My friend. Two ball in the corner pocket.” 

The shot was across the length of the table. It would be easy to get the angles not quite right even when it looked like they were okay. Jack stroked true, and the ball popped where he wanted it to be.

“Nice shot,” Ennis said. 

“I’m gonna beat your ass.” 

“I’d like to see you try.”

“You want to put a little bet on this game?”

“I’m already three down. I ain’t that dumb.”

Jack got serious in a hurry. He took a step closer. “You aren’t dumb at all. You’ve got to start believing that, just like you’ve got to start feeling more secure in financials.” 

Ennis picked up his bottle and took a long swallow. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Jack stood there looking at him for a little while. Then he shook his head and went back to playing pool.

The distracting must have worked, cause Jack missed and it was Ennis’s turn. They changed places with no words, though Ennis noticed that Jack was on his third beer of the night, with two empties lined up next to the one he picked up.

The first shot was a no-brainer, since Jack had left the table in perfect position to put the fifteen ball away. Which Ennis did. Like stealing from a child. 

The next shot he wasn’t sure on. The twelve or the thirteen. Neither one real easy, but Jack had drained three balls so Ennis had to shoot well and catch up. He checked the green felt from all four directions, trying to decide, cause he was not gonna lay down easy. 

“Gonna bank off the cushion to put the thirteen ball in the corner there.” 

“That’ll be the day.” 

He leaned over the shot, curved his fingers for support and rested the stick on his thumb. Ran it back and forth a couple times, then let it go. It was satisfying to see the balls go in all the directions he meant them to, and for the thirteen to disappear.

“Good shot.” 

“Damn right.” 

He went back to his beer, drank, and ran the chalk cube where it was needed. Jack needed to understand where his mind was on the business end of things. Coming after him to the bar didn’t mean surrendering. Those damn horse trips were gonna continue. 

“Remember Morgan wanted me to get a horse for Janice?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I still mean to do that, when I can find the right one. That’ll mean three horses in the back pasture, plus Jigger.”

There went that tongue of Jack’s stretching out the inside of his mouth. The man was predictable, some ways. “You aiming to kill yourself or me?”

“Neither one sounds any good.”

“Maybe I’ll just kill Morgan and that’ll take care of the problem.”

“Janice too.” 

“Yeah.”

“Anybody listening to us, they’d think we’re plotting a murder like on _Hawaii Five-O_ or something,” Ennis said. 

“Any jury in the world would let me go if I was to murder you. They’d say I had just cause.”

“Could be you’d miss me.”

“I wouldn’t miss you butting into my phone calls.”

“Jesus Christ.” 

“You gonna talk or play pool?”

“Shit,” Ennis said, and he turned away.

There was no good shot for him, that was for sure. Walking around wasn’t gonna change anything, so he stared at the table without seeing much of anything. This living together business was more trouble than he’d ever thought. What Jack wanted, what he wanted, them not seeing eye to eye more often than had ever happened week by week in the mountains. Then again, it’d been some time since he’d tried bending his ways to another person, and he hadn’t exactly been so good at it back then. He hadn’t wanted to be good at it back then, especially in those last Alma years. 

After a minute Jack came up to stand next to him. With a little sigh Jack said, “You could go for the twelve.”

“Since when are you giving the enemy advice?”

“Ah, fuck, you’re not my enemy. In no way.”

“It don’t matter, I can’t reach the twelve.”

“You could if you use the bridge. There’s one right over there in the rack with the cue sticks.”

“Bridges are for fairies.”

“If the shoe fits, Ennis….”

He showed what he thought of that comment with a look that should have burned a hole right through that man. “Nine ball in the side, banking off here and here.”

He didn’t have a prayer and he knew it, though maybe some professional pool player might have made that shot. Jack snorted when he announced it and went back to his beer. Ennis lined it up, stroked, tried to put some spin on and failed. He barely avoided scratching by not hitting anything with the cue ball at all. 

“Your shot,” he said.

Jack paid no attention to the other two plays that Ennis figured were possible for him. Instead he marched over to the long side of the table and leaned over until he was a couple inches from the five ball. He turned toward Ennis while he was down there and said, “You see this here? The five goes in the corner pocket.”

“You’re crazy.” 

Jack straightened. “Nope. Some other things, but not crazy.”

The bridge, that in his whole pool-playing life Ennis had never used not even once, seemed to fit naturally in Jack’s hand. He settled it on the surface, took aim, and in that five ball went. And then the four ball after that. 

But Jack missed his next shot, which meant Ennis had the chance to aim for the fourteen. He did it carefully, thinking ahead to positioning afterward, and shot hard. The ball damn near jumped back out of the pocket, it went in so strong, but he was left with a good shot for the twelve. 

Jack was right behind him, practically breathing down his neck as he lined things up. “Those times when you’re not acting like a shithead,” he said quietly, “it’s not so bad. Like this past weekend, all those things we did.”

“If you think you’ll throw my aim off talking about that, you’re wrong,” Ennis said. “You’re like a kid.”

“Those weren’t kid things I was doing to you.”

“I thought I told you to pipe down.”

“I’m not exactly yelling it out loud, how you like it when I put my fingers—”

“Shut up, Jack, or I’m gonna shut you up myself.”

“You think you’re gonna drop that twelve ball, you’re wrong.”

It was the best thing he’d done all year, watching that ball disappear. Except for moving in with Jack, and surely Ennis was the crazy man for doing that. 

Jack kept quiet while he downed the eleven, but after that he missed. 

Which left Jack with the six and seven balls, and then the eight ball for the win after that if he could sink them. But Ennis was pretty sure he’d get another chance to play. He’d not left Jack with hardly any shot at all. Everything was awkward or blocked, and there wasn’t even a banked shot he could see that might work out. 

But he’d forgotten how his Jack was now. He’d always been one for expecting that things would turn out and that good things would happen, but over the last year Jack had lost patience with waiting and learned instead how to go after what he needed.

“Watch this,” Jack said. 

He put the cue stick behind his back, leveled it out and aimed at the six that way, looking like a pure, Grade A idiot in Ennis’s mind. But there was no denying that improved his ability to get to the ball.

“There is no way you make that,” Ennis said. “And you look like an asshole.”

Jack licked his lips. Shot. Crowed out loud when he didn’t miss. The two guys over at the bar looked at them, shrugged, and then went back to their Jack Daniels and TV.

That was all she wrote. Jack would have had to stand on his head to miss a six inch shot at the seven, and then it seemed like some plan of God that the eight ball should drop for him. That was the end of the game, and Ennis felt some injustice over it, that he hadn’t won. Normally, he’d beat Jack four games out of five, but this night it had to be that one.

Jack turned to him, his eyes shining. “You want to try best out of three?”

But Ennis was already putting his cue stick back where it belonged. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re not being a sore loser, are you?”

“No, I’m being a man who’s had a long day and wants to get some sleep.”

“You barely got here.”

“Let’s go home, Jack.” 

“What happened to my hard-drinking beer buddy?”

“He’s working two jobs,” Ennis snapped. “I am fucking tired. I’m going home. You can come if you want to or not. It doesn’t make any difference to me.”

He picked up his hat, drained the beer, and went through the door, pausing once he was out in the night air to listen if Jack would follow. But that door stayed closed. 

Ennis sighed and scuffed his feet on the concrete. Damn. He’d made his way into town, hadn’t he? He’d played the game when asked. The least Jack could do was…. 

And why was it that there was always brackish water in little puddles in parking lots outside dumps like _Stubbie’s?_ And always the smell that was like old garbage?

A car came down the street, catching his attention cause he didn’t especially want to think anymore. Not too big, foreign-made, a Toyota. Ennis watched while the car came closer, passed in front of him, and then down the road it went, getting smaller in his sight, the road noise fading away. 

A sound behind him caught his attention, the door opening. Ennis wouldn’t let himself look. Whoever it was didn’t move right away. Ennis felt like maybe there were eyes trained on his back. Might be Jack, might be one of those guys at the bar, objecting to how Ennis was.

Footsteps. Ennis turned and saw it was Jack after all. 

For once without any words, Jack held out a pack of cigarettes he must have bought inside. Ennis took one and leaned forward to light up when Jack struck a match. 

They stood there smoking in what appeared like twilight, the one parking lot light aimed away from them. The night was still plenty warm, with the promise of another hot day coming tomorrow. 

“Seems we started out this way tonight,” Ennis said. “Smoking.” He remembered how he hadn’t wanted to leave the house, how just sitting with Jack had been satisfying.

“That’s right.” 

“Want to start over?”

“Seems possible.”

“How about if I ask what happened at the lot yesterday?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s not the same, but okay. Yesterday I landed a big account, really big. Three thousand head to be delivered starting Friday, with more promised for later.” 

“That’s a fine thing. Really good.”

“Yeah.”

“That from one of those ranchers you went to see before we met up in Taos?” 

Jack gave him a look that showed he was surprised Ennis had been paying attention. “It sure is. Jud Barton. He’s got a spread north of here.”

“Seems you got him to make up his mind quick, after Kansas City.”

“Strike while the iron’s hot, that’s what they say. But there’s more.”

“Go ahead.”

“Corliss took me out to lunch and gave me a raise.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope, I’m not. Ennis, ten thousand dollars.” 

“Fuck. No.”

“Yeah. I could hardly believe it.”

Ennis blew out smoke. Shit, Jack had been making more than him even before this raise. “You’re gonna get a swelled head.”

“Maybe.”

“Think you’re a hotshot sales rep, not gonna have any time for a dumbass ranch hand like me.” 

“A dumbass ranch foreman like you. And you’re the one who doesn’t have any time for me.”

“I got started with this training horses thing, I gotta keep going.” 

“Just like I got started with Gary when I moved to Amarillo, when you weren’t around. We’re friends. Are you going to learn to bend with that?” 

“I don’t like it, Jack. He’s still after you.” 

Jack made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and kicked at the gravel. “Ennis…. Sometimes there’s no getting through to you.” His cigarette went flying, the lighted tip flaring like a meteor flaming to the ground. “I thought you said you were tired. Let’s get out of here and go home.”

“Sounds good to me.” 

Ennis climbed into his truck, turned the ignition key, and waited. He wanted Jack to pull out before he did. When that happened he followed, keeping close to the Ford’s bright red tail lights. Ennis felt like one of those dogs Jack had been fond of up on Brokeback, herding before him what he held precious. 

Jack wouldn’t like that thought for sure, and Ennis felt a touch uneasy about it too. What kind of ties did he have on Jack, anyway? If Jack wanted to be the coach’s friend, if he wanted more than that, if he wanted to go back to those days when he’d looked at those magazines, maybe with other men, there wasn’t anything Ennis could do to stop him. 

Ennis’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. Other men. Ennis was sure that Jack remembered them as well as Ennis recalled the smell of Cassie’s shampoo in her hair. 

He looked ahead at the shadow that was Jack Twist driving his Ford back to County Road 19. Jack had turned his back on all that, had said he wanted to live with Ennis, had always said that was what he wanted in his heart to do. It seemed a miracle, or maybe impossible, that having lived the other kind of life that Jack was willing to settle for just him. 

They drove past the Allsup’s store and the Texaco, both still open past eleven o’clock, then past the real estate office and the newspaper storefront, long closed for the night. The buildings began to have more space between them as they got closer to the edge of town, and three minutes later the lights of Eagle Nest had been left behind them. The dark suited how Ennis was feeling, mighty blue. 

Highway 38 headed north straight along this stretch, with their headlights cutting through the night. Past the Buckminster ranch where he’d be working come daylight and past the dirt road that cut west toward three fine vacation houses each worth about a million dollars. Only five minutes to home, where for the second night in a row it seemed Ennis wouldn’t be able to get to bed quick enough. No wonder women were weaker than men. They were always playing around with their feelings, and Ennis found that exhausting. He wanted to pull Jack close naked under the sheet, give him exactly what he wanted, no matter what it was, just to make sure, and fall asleep wrapped around his man. 

The Ford’s rear lights flared as the truck came to a quick stop just as Ennis realized he’d been following way too close. He slammed on his brakes, practically stood on them, and let out his breath when, with the back wheels screeching and skidding to the side, he managed not to collide with Jack’s bumper. That was a hell of a way to treat a good truck. What was Jack thinking of, coming to a standstill so suddenly?

The Ford’s door opened, and Jack got out. What the fuck? Ennis fumbled for his truck’s handle, all the positions not yet second-nature to him, found it, and shoved the door open. His work boots thumped against the concrete. 

Jack had turned on his bright beams, and he was down on one knee in the middle of the road reaching toward something. There was roadkill right along the middle stripe, maybe a possum or…no, it was a bird. And it wasn’t any roadkill, cause it was moving, fluttering one wing.

He could see the bird clearly now. It was big, maybe fifteen, eighteen inches with a short tail and a wicked, curved beak designed for killing and tearing. Right now, it was down on its side, scrambling to get up, to fly away, but something was stopping it, though he couldn’t see any blood. 

“You want to get your eyes pecked out?” Ennis growled as he came up to Jack. 

“I know better than that,” Jack snapped. “It must have a broken wing. I think something’s wrong with its leg too. It’s a red-tail.”

“So? Why’d you stop?”

Jack looked up at him. “Why do you think? Because I didn’t feel like running it over and finishing the job somebody else started. Because I’m in a forgiving sort of mood.” 

“Hawks like this are a dime a dozen.”

“I don’t care. You ever watch one of these up in the air? The way they soar on the thermals?”

“I’m a working man, I don’t have time for fooling around. Besides, the vultures do that soaring thing too. You want to play Good Samaritan to this bird?”

“I’m considering it.”

“It’d be better to put it out of its misery. Spare it pain, with no prospect of flying again anyway.”

“We don’t know that. A vet needs to look at it and decide.”

Damn, the man was stubborn. Ennis couldn’t quite figure what he was doing out in the middle of the highway at night arguing with a madman. Somebody was bound to come along. Maybe they’d rear-end Ennis’s new truck cause they couldn’t believe anybody would be crazy enough to stop just for a downed hawk. 

“A vet? You want to spend good cash on some wild bird? I know you’re making more money now, but that’s a damn fool way to spend it.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Sure. If you’re dumb enough to want to take this thing on, take it over to Floyd’s place. He told me this afternoon he tends to hurt animals.”

“Floyd,” Jack said doubtfully. “That Indian guy who’s been working with you at the ranch?”

“Yep. But I say leave this thing here.” 

“No way,” Jack said as he stood up. Ennis was glad to see he still had some sense left, as he went back to his truck bed and pulled out an old blanket he had in the tool box. Jack threw it over the hawk and then rolled it over with the toe of his boot so it was covered completely by the cloth. He bent down to pick up the corners and said, “There you go,” though Ennis wasn’t sure whether he was talking to him or to the bird. 

The hawk in the blanket wasn’t struggling. Ennis figured that was a bad sign, as it probably meant it was too hurt. Or had been hurt more. Or could be it was terrified. 

“This thing might not even be alive tomorrow morning,” he warned as he trailed Jack to his truck and watched him place the whole contraption in the back bed. 

“That’s not in my hands,” Jack said. 

“You are setting yourself up to be disappointed.”

Jack turned, his elbow up on the side of the truck. “I’ve got plenty of practice with that. It’s been a while, though.”

“Yeah, well….” Ennis looked out to where his shadow was long across the road, thrown there by the headlights. “I can take the bird to Floyd’s tomorrow after work.” 

“Like hell. This is my bird, and I’ll take it. Besides, you’ve got your horses to care for. This’ll give me something worthwhile to do while you’re busy making a name for yourself.”

Ennis frowned, thinking of how he’d said Jack’s name to Floyd. The old man wasn’t any dummy…. 

“Okay?” Jack asked, speaking evenly, with a load of meaning in the one word. 

There wasn’t anything for it, it was just going to be that way. Fucking life was getting fucking complicated. Ennis rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Can we head for home now?” he asked, aware that he sounded like a kid but not knowing how he couldn’t.

“Yeah, except don’t trail me so close this time. I’m not going to disappear, you know.”

So Jack said. 

*****

Thursday after dinner, Ennis pushed back from the table and told Jack he would call Junior before he headed outside. Jack nodded, grabbed a copy of the latest _Time_ magazine that was on the kitchen counter with the rest of the mail, and disappeared into the bathroom. Since Ennis had cooked dinner—macaroni and cheese from a box along with fried pork chops and canned peas—he left the dishes where they were for Jack to clean up and headed for the phone in the bedroom. It seemed ridiculous to him, a smallish house like theirs having three phones, but he wasn’t the one who’d set it up that way. 

He was reaching to dial when a tapping sound came to his ears. His heart jumped as he straightened and realized it was coming from their empty living room. Somebody was knocking on the front door.

Maybe he should have gone with Jack the night before to Floyd’s, to get that dog. 

He went cautiously to the door that they never used, that any country person would know was not used. Through the see-through curtain that was on the door window, he saw that the person standing there must be a woman, but nobody he knew. That was better than a man, he guessed, cause a woman wasn’t a real threat. But what the hell did she want? Was she selling something? 

The door scraped as it opened. She was tall for a gal and would have been good-looking except that her face was mighty thin. Real short brown hair made him think she might be one of those lesbians who tried to pretend they were a man. She was looking at him like she’d never seen a man before. That made him uncomfortable, so he said more roughly than maybe he should have, “Yeah?”

He saw how she pulled her shoulders back as if it was a hard thing to do. “Pardon me,” she said. “I don’t mean to disturb your dinner. But is Jack in?”

*****


	7. Trade

He could tell from the way Ennis called for him to come out of the bathroom that something was going on. He could even tell from the way he knocked, when normally he’d just barge in or yell out loud. Who had come to their front door and spooked Ennis? Damn, Jack thought as he zipped up, it was bad enough for Betty Jo to come calling. Ennis only now seemed to be coming to grips with that. 

He opened the door cautiously, took a few steps into the empty kitchen, and then looked over to the front room. His whole world spun around as he saw what should have been an impossibility. Two people who should never meet stood right next to one another, looking at him and expecting him to say something that made sense. But what was he supposed to say, especially to Ennis, whose shoulders were too often bowed down by the weight of the world’s eyes on him?

“Lureen?” He barely recognized her. Her hair was real short and flat to her head, her face pale, and the straight-leg jeans and clingy black top she wore showed how thin she’d become. About the only thing that said Lureen to him were the high heels she rarely left the house without. 

“You got it right on the first try, good for you.” Normally, that would’ve been aimed to sting, because that was the way Lureen had become over the years, but she offered a strange smile this time too, one that had as much sadness to it as anything. “How’re you doing, Jack?”

“I’m fine.” He glanced at Ennis, because he had no idea how his Wyoming man was taking this. Uh-oh. Hands in his pockets, forehead creased with worry lines. Shit, he’d never thought they’d see Lureen…. What could’ve brought her…. An awful thought took Jack a step closer. “Is Bobby okay? Nothing’s happened, has it? Down in Austin?”

“No, Bobby’s all right. I just wanted to see you. Is that so bad, wanting to see my ex-husband?” she said with a catch to her voice. She sort of flowed toward him and then was in his arms before he had a chance to think. “It’s good to see you, Jack,” she murmured as she gave him a real hug. 

Automatically, his arms closed around her. They hadn’t hugged full-on like this for years, maybe not since he’d sent out the postcard in search of the man he couldn’t get out of his mind. The divorce had done all the right things for him and Lureen. It had stripped away the pretending that had made their marriage so painful toward the end, but even the new easiness between them since then couldn’t account for this. His heart dropped low in his stomach as dread blossomed. 

“Honey?” he asked while she clutched at him. “Are you okay? Is everything all right?” Over her shoulder he saw that Ennis had his head turned and was staring at the kitchen sink.

She pulled back with a sound from low in her throat, not really a laugh. “Sure. Everything’s going to be fine.”

He searched her face, and she let him. He didn’t like what he saw. “No, I mean it. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay. A little tired.”

“Did you drive all the way from Childress?”

“No, I rented a car in Taos after flying from Texas, but the flight over was bumpy, you know? I’m worn out.” 

“Then why don’t you sit down? Come on, over here….” The kitchen table was spread with the remains of dinner, meat bones they’d gnawed on piled up on both their plates, but there wasn’t anywhere else to sit. He pulled out a chair and down she went, it seemed to him gratefully. 

“This is your seat, right?” Lureen asked as she looked across the mess. “You never would eat the crusts of bread. It’s real funny how a person misses stupid things like that.” 

Where he was still standing in the front room, Ennis finally stirred and said, “I’ll be leaving, I reckon. Let you two have some time.”

He was halfway to the side door, head down, before Lureen put out a hand in his direction. “Please, don’t go.”

Ennis kept going and reached for his hat from the peg on the wall. “Ma’am, I don’t mean to intrude. It’d be best if I left you to talk to your…with Jack.” 

“You won’t be intruding. I need to talk to you too.”

With his hand on the knob, Ennis said, “I doubt we have anything to say to one another.” 

Lureen bit her lip and looked down at Jack’s abandoned plate. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? You and me, anybody would think we’d have bones to pick with each other. But I’ve known about you two for a long time, or at least I suspected, and I promise I won’t be… I won’t throw anything in your face.” She looked up. “That is, assuming that you’re Ennis Del Mar. I’m right, aren’t I? I wasn’t sure who’d be opening Jack’s door, who I’d find here, but I had a bet with myself….”

Jack found himself looking straight into Ennis’s eyes as fear flared up there. He knew Ennis would do just about anything to avoid admitting that out loud, but here was more of the real world come into their house. Lureen was asking for words that needed to be said, asking a question that was Ennis’s to answer, but seeing the way the muscle was working on the side of his jaw, hearing the silence that grew and grew as Lureen trailed off, maybe that wasn’t going to happen. 

_Come on, you goddamned shithead, you and me, we’re the truth, aren’t we? Aren’t we? Besides, she already knows…._

Ennis faced Lureen, looking like a man braced to be run over by a bull, and something inside Jack was awfully glad that Lureen would see the kind of man his Ennis was struggling to be. 

“Ma’am, you don’t have anything figured wrong.” 

Lureen rocked back a little as what was real washed over her, but then she sat up straight and nodded. She turned to Jack. “He’s why you left me, right? You went to Amarillo to be with him.”

Jack dropped down into Ennis’s chair. They should’ve had this conversation before the divorce. “It’s more complicated than that. But it doesn’t matter. We’ve been living together since March. Since February 28.”

Lureen lifted her head in that way that told Jack she was fighting tears. “Damn, Jack, even though I knew, it’s hard to hear you say that.” 

He reached for her hand and was surprised when she let him take it. This was not the old Lureen he’d had hundreds of fights with over the years, with her slamming pots and pans and doors, yelling at the top of her lungs, and the next morning setting him down, determined to tell him how things would be. 

“Honey, I’m sorry. It’s just that—”

“That you’re homosexual, right? I married a gay man, didn’t I?”

Finally, it was said, and Jack couldn’t help but feel good about it. Over by the door, Ennis shifted weight from one hip to another, but this was how Jack had wanted it to be between him and Lureen. He nodded solemnly. “You sure did marry a gay man.”

Lureen sighed. “You wouldn’t think I’d still care. I don’t, not really, it’s only my pride talking. I’m not here to worry you about this. I’ve got… I’ve got other things I need your help with, things we need to consult on.” 

He let her hand go. “Then Ennis can go take care of his chores, right? There’s no need—”

“No, he’s got to be here. This is for both of you.” She looked over toward him. “Mr. Del Mar, set yourself down with us, please. The stuff I’ve got to say, it’d be easier if you were here.” 

Ennis had a strange attitude toward women, Jack had realized long ago. He could come out with comments that would make a man think he hated every one of them, and one of his great fears about being queer centered on people thinking he had women’s ways. But when Ennis came face to face with a woman, a sort of gentleness came through, or at least some softer politeness that really wasn’t all that far removed from the way he really was under his fear-produced brittle armor. And Lord knew he loved his girls. 

Now Jack could see him wavering. He found himself hoping Ennis would stay so they could hear whatever it was Lureen had to say together, like they weren’t cowed or shamed, the way Jack wished they could act in the world. It wasn’t like that in the world, but in these four walls, in front of Lureen, it could be. 

Ennis put his hat back up by the door, and then he went over to the table. “Jack,” he said, his tone quiet and mild, “how about you clean this up. I’ll get the other chair from the back room.” 

While Jack put the remains of dinner up on the counter, Ennis sat down across from Lureen, with the chair pushed back from the table about as far as it could be and still be in the same county. Still, he was there.

“You want a glass of water or something?” Ennis asked. “Have you ate… have you had dinner?”

“You look like a stiff wind could blow you over,” Jack put in as he wiped the table clean.

“It’s hard to get your appetite back after chemo,” Lureen said, in that Texas drawl that at one time had fascinated Jack, then had annoyed the hell out of him. “Don’t worry, I ate in Taos before I drove over here. But some water would be nice.” 

“I’ll get it,” Jack said. He set it down and took the chair closest to her, what was normally Ennis’s spot. “Lureen, you’ve got me scared here. You say you’re okay, but I’m wondering. What’s going on?”

Lureen looked off to the side, down to the tile floor that maybe they’d swiped a mop over twice since they’d moved in. “You know how I changed my will when we divorced?” 

“Sure.” 

“You weren’t in it last time.”

“That’s natural.”

“I appointed Olin Henderson down the bank as my executor, but now I’m doing things over and asking Daddy to be that for me.”

“Okay,” Jack said, testing the word. He could feel this leading up to something he wouldn’t like. Mentioning L.D. was enough to put him even more on edge. “Though it’s likely he’ll be dead and buried long before—”

“You hush and let me finish. We’ve got the money you and me saved for Bobby’s college set aside. The lawyer says it needs to be in a trust, to make sure he doesn’t use it foolishly. I think that it’d be best if you’d be the trustee.” She glanced up at him swiftly, one of those Lureen-looks from under her eyelashes that at one time was a sexy come-on, even to him, but now made her look mainly like a scared little girl.

Did she think he’d say no? He hadn’t been expecting her to ask, true. At the time they’d split, he’d agree to leave all of Bobby’s finances in her hands. He’d figured she didn’t want to have much to do with him anymore and, truthfully, he didn’t want an ex-wife and his teenage son messing with the new life he was, damn it, going to try to build for himself. The more distance the better. But now he was settled with Ennis, and it seemed Lureen was looking to have this part of him back. Truth be told, he wanted to be there. As he’d found at work days before, a man wanted to feel needed.

“All right. I guess I can do that, if I can get details on what being a trustee means. But don’t you think you’re overdoing things? You’ll be around to make sure that money gets spent on Bobby the right way. Your chemo went real well, you said the check-up in Abilene was okay, so we don’t need—”

“Abilene….” She wrapped her hand around the glass of water and rubbed it with her thumb. “Abilene wasn’t really okay.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

She abandoned the glass and looked up at him instead. “Jack,” she said, with her eyes swimming in tears. 

Panic ripped through him. 

“What?” He hitched forward in the chair, more like a lunge, and grabbed her hands. “What? Lureen, tell me!”

She took a long shuddering breath and opened her mouth to say something, but there were no words. She bent her head. 

Jack sought out Ennis’s eyes to find some sense in what he didn’t understand, protection against what he feared, but there wasn’t anything there for him. Ennis sat motionless in his chair, like a horse cornered by a pack of wolves, caught in a scene he didn’t belong in and wanted to get out of. 

“Lureen! Honey, let me know, you’re scaring me awful bad here.” Jack tightened his grip on her hands, so small in his. 

“Not half as scared as me.” He could barely understand what she was saying. “All right, this isn’t fair to you. I got to get hold of myself.” She looked up again, with her mascara smeared and her face blotchy; so different from the woman he knew. “I am gonna die real soon, Jack. The cancer’s spread. It’s all over. The doctors can’t do a thing for it, and I don’t have much time left.” 

He shouldn’t care so much, that was the first thought Jack had that made any sense. He’d divorced Lureen a year before, they’d not got on well for years before that, and he’d been happy when he’d finally been freed of her. Then why should he feel like he’d tumbled from the clouds and was falling to earth, the wind screaming in his ears, his arms flailing, looking for something to hold on to? There was no parachute that could stop him from crashing into the truth. 

“No,” he croaked. 

Lureen untangled one of her hands from his and reached out to touch the side of his face. “Yes,” she said gently, like he was a little boy, with tears now streaming down her cheeks. 

“Tell me it ain’t true.” 

“It’s true, Jack.”

“Oh, Lureen.” He found himself sliding out of his chair onto his knees before her. “No,” he cried as he buried his face in her neck, where there should’ve been a mass of hair for him to hide in. “No.” 

He could feel her shaking in his arms, how her own arms were folded in against her chest like she was protecting something—her one remaining breast, her life—but no person knew how to protect against this. “Lureen,” he moaned through his own tears as guilt slammed into him. From the beginning, he’d wondered if he’d been the cause of her breast cancer, that somehow the stress caused by the divorce had brought it on. Much as they’d had a friendly parting, relief on both sides plain, still he knew it must’ve been hard on her.

“Are you sure?” he gasped, but his words were lost against her skin, that smooth, white skin at the side of her neck that he used to kiss. It didn’t matter that he’d done it out of obligation and had to think about Ennis or nameless men to get it up with her. Still, the softest skin, Lureen’s. 

He pressed a kiss there—memories exploded against his lips, how could it be that memories were all she would become?—and then pulled back, still holding her close. “Are you sure? Maybe, maybe you need a second opinion, those doctors—”

She swallowed, and he could see the effort it took for her to conjure up the smallest smile. “You can’t talk your way out of this for me, Jack. I’ve known now almost two weeks, and first thing Daddy did was take me to Houston and the M.D. Anderson center. They’re the best in the country, and they make no mistakes.” 

“They’re positive?” 

“I’ve seen the test results, honey. This is the way it’s going to be. Don’t make me give you details, it’d hurt too much. Worse thing,” she looked down between them, “the worse thing is not knowing when I’ll….” 

She couldn’t go on, and he didn’t want her to. He grabbed her tight and she went into his embrace, shuddering, grabbing the front of his shirt as if he could stop her from drowning. He squeezed his eyes shut and wished with everything he had that he could help her. She’d come to him, her ex-husband, maybe because there was no one else in the whole world she could go to in order to cry and be held in this particular way, the way a person needed to be held when their whole world was turning dark. Who was she going to find comfort with, L.D.? Jack couldn’t imagine it. Her mama, Faye, she’d give a mother’s touch, he was sure she’d held her little girl and rocked her, but that was a mother and her child, not a man who’d given Lureen her son, lived with her through seventeen years even if they weren’t the best, sat with her through movies and barbecues, picked out their bedroom furniture with her, told her when the shirt she was wearing looked good for her coloring, told her when she was chewing in a restaurant and spinach got caught between her teeth, told her that he was planning to go traveling for Newsome Farm Equipment the next week, told her that he was going up to Wyoming for a third time in a year because the fish were sure to be biting. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ear. “Lureen, you don’t know how sorry I am.”

“I know,” she choked. “I know.”

He knelt there filled with regrets and fears and sorrow, his thoughts ranging all over the place, trying to imagine how she must feel, mourning her already like she was gone, telling himself he shouldn’t feel guilty because a man had to go after his own happiness and his own life, and how could he have known this would happen to her? A part of him wished he’d waited a year, so then he could’ve been her husband when the breast cancer hit and when it spread like it seemed it had so fast. He could’ve been what she wanted him to be this last time, instead of the gay husband who had found his own truth and his happiness at last.

He remembered his own great sorrow, the grief that had been his to choose or to walk away from, how he’d forced himself to take it on, saying good-bye to Ennis on that rain-soaked day up at Pine Creek. How he had felt for weeks before like curling into a ball because he didn’t know how he could do it, see the man he loved for the last time, never again feel that jump in his chest because Ennis had driven up, was getting out of his truck, and was smiling that hello-Jack smile he got. How sometimes Jack’s sorrow had felt like it weighed five hundred pounds and he was dragging it around with him every fucking minute of every fucking day. 

There’d been long weeks afterward of facing what he’d done and knowing it couldn’t be changed. And then against all expectations, against everything Jack knew about his man, his fears and his weakness and his stubbornness…Ennis had changed everything. God almighty in heaven, how come John Henry Twist Jr. had found salvation on Earth and not Lureen? 

Jack rocked her, pressed her close, and kissed her hair cut short by the damn bastard disease, the same way her life would be cut short. Christ, she was only forty-one. 

He stayed there with her for a long time, long past the time his knees began to hurt and his throat went raw from crying, until finally she went quiet. As if she was giving him permission, his own tears stopped, though he doubted that the ache he felt would go away for a long time. 

Lureen gave a couple of little sniffles and pulled back from him. She wiped at her face with the tips of her fingers. “Could I have a—”

In between the two of them a hand appeared, offering some paper towels. Lureen said, “Thanks,” took one and blew her nose. Jack looked up at where Ennis was standing. Through all the time him and Lureen had been wrapped up with each other crying, Ennis hadn’t taken the chance to walk away.

“Here, bud, you need one too.” 

Jack took it and slid back into his seat. As he dried his face off, Ennis went over to the sink and ran water into a plastic cup from some fast food joint. He brought it over to Jack, who downed it in three gulps. 

Lureen’s voice was shaky, but she had herself mainly back under control. “You see, Mister Del Mar, why I don’t hold a grudge against you? My life’s too short now to waste it on cursing you and Jack.” 

“Ma’am,” Ennis said, standing behind Jack’s chair, “I’m awful sorry to hear your bad news. You’re a good woman to be so forgiving.” 

She reached for her own water, drank some, and set it back down before her. “It just doesn’t seem important anymore, who Jack’s sleeping with. That part of my life is over. Practically my whole life is over, isn’t it?” 

She blew her nose again, still doing it ladylike, as Jack imagined she would be until her last minute, because that was the way she was. 

“I’m so tired of being tired,” she said as she squashed the paper towel into a ball and placed it on the table. “First the chemo, now this, and it’s never going to get better.” She managed to put a smile on her face, and then it faded away. “Anyway, I’m wrapping things up. Daddy didn’t want me to come here, but I had to.”

“L.D. knows you’re here?” Jack could hardly believe it. 

She nodded. “He’s the one who hired the plane to take me from Childress airport to Taos. It’s not like we’re on the regular commuter run.” 

From where he was standing off to Jack’s side, Ennis said, “You should have flown into Angel Fire, saved you the extra driving.”

“I know, but I wanted to see Taos. I’ve never been there before. This is my last chance. I’m being forced into doing a bunch of things at once, because I don’t know when…. The doctors said maybe two more months, maybe three or a little more. I’ve already spent two weeks.”

The way she talked about it matter-of-fact sent a shiver across Jack’s shoulders. He knew she’d had time to accept it, as much as it could be accepted, but he couldn’t believe it yet. This was all some bad dream, right?

He leaned forward with elbows on his knees. “Lureen, honey, you didn’t need to come out here. You know I’m supposed to see Bobby and you next weekend anyway. If you’d needed me sooner I would have come to see you if you’d told me—”

“But then I wouldn’t have found out if you were really here with Ennis, would I?” she said in that Lureen-reasonable tone that had always rubbed against his pride. “Or get the chance to see your place and meet him face to face. I needed to do both. I might not have been the best mother in the world, but I guess knowing I won’t be around for Bobby is making me protective all of a sudden.” 

“You don’t need to worry about Bobby, I’ll—”

“It’s not you and Bobby that I was worried about, Jack. It’s whoever you were shacking up with and Bobby. Whether you’d give a thought to your son when you’re here living the wild life. Whether he’d be… safe.” 

It got so still in the room that Jack could hear the little hand on their clock clicking second by second. He scrambled for some words that would reassure her and not cause Ennis to take offense because he’d spoken too plainly, but he wasn’t thinking clearly at the moment and it took him too long. Ennis opened his mouth before he had the chance to. 

“Now you listen here,” Ennis told Lureen. “Your son has no cause to fear me. I’ve got daughters of my—”

“But he’s a boy, only seventeen. He’s—

“I don’t care if he’s the king of England,” Ennis growled. “I don’t go after kids. I don’t go after anybody but Ja—” He snapped his mouth shut over the rest, though Jack’s head was swimming that he’d said so much. “You trying to make light of what Jack and me got going here?”

Jack twisted around to see Ennis looking like a thundercloud. “Ennis, Lureen doesn’t understand. She didn’t mean—”

“I heard her. I am sorry that this is happening to you, ma’am, but you got no call to think…. What kind of man do you think Jack would take up with, anyhow?” Ennis took a step in Jack’s direction and slapped a hand on the back of his chair. “You should know him better than that.”

“There’s a big part of his life that I don’t know at all,” Lureen said quickly, like she was finally getting the chance to say what she’d been thinking for a long time. “I would’ve been an idiot like LaShawn Malone not to know there was something more than fish and visiting his parents to draw Jack to Wyoming year after year, so I guessed you were the one who’d be here. But there were those other times he went sneaking off to meet God knows who, as if I didn’t know something was going on. I have no idea what kind of life you two are living here.” 

Ennis stalked over to the sink, his thumbs caught in his belt loops and his elbows sticking out stiffly. Staring out the window, he said, “It just comes naturally to your mind that cause Jack and me, since we’re…here, that we’re the worst kind of men?” 

She stood up with the chair scraping on the floor behind her. “Mister Del Mar, I told you I had no intention of worrying you about this, and I’m not. But I’m a mother about to leave her only child for good. Try to see this from the way I’m looking at it.”

She kept talking to Ennis’s back. “Jack’s going to be my son’s only parent, help him through college, and stand on his own two feet. Whoever Jack’s got in his life, that person’s going to be part of Bobby’s life too. I never set eyes on you before, so how am I supposed to know what kind of man you are? Except that you’re a homosexual, and I don’t know any of them. Except Jack here, I guess. I know what I read in the magazines about bathhouses in New York and free love in San Francisco, and I can tell you I don’t want Bobby to have any exposure to that kind of living. My daddy’s right about that.” 

Ennis turned around, his frown filling the room. “You see anything like that here?”

Lureen looked around. “I see signs that two men could use a woman to show them how to clean, but nothing else.”

“And you won’t see anything else, not to turn your face away from or to scare your daddy,” Ennis said. “This ain’t some game that Jack and me are playing. We’re just living, you hear me? Living like any other people.”

“Not like other people,” she objected. 

“The way we’re different, you’ll never see, and Bobby’ll never see.” Ennis shook his head. “It ain’t that way. I will tell you this once, and once is all that’s needed, so you listen to me good. I would guard Bobby against any kind of harm that could come to him, not cause I’m some holy roller but cause he’s Jack’s son. That’s reason enough for me, and that’s gotta be enough for you too. You got that?”

Lureen seemed to be measuring Ennis, trying to decide if she should take him at his word. Jack wanted to tell her that he’d never heard Ennis speak in such a way in front of another person, and that she should believe that the sun would not rise in the morning before she should doubt anything he’d said. 

“I have the feeling, Mister Del Mar,” Lureen said even slower than she normally talked, “that you are a man who means what he says.” 

“You’ve got that right,” Jack agreed, and finally he stood up and walked around the table so that he was facing Lureen, standing between her and Ennis. “Lureen, you have no worries on this. We live like you see, we both have good jobs, plus Ennis is training horses out back. If things work out, we’ll move at the end of the lease to someplace better, but this suits us for now. And you have to know, I have not taken up with anybody you can object to. It’s just me and Ennis, and he is a good man.” 

“You said that about the coach, you idiot,” Ennis growled from behind his shoulder. “And I don’t know about who else. You’ve got lousy judgment. Let the lady make up her own mind.”

Lureen gave a shaky laugh. “Idiot? Jack, will you stand for that?” 

“I’ve heard him say worse.”

“You gave me call to say worse on occasion. Ma’am—”

“I am getting tired of hearing you say that. Do you suppose we could come to an understanding? My name’s Lureen.” 

She put out her hand. Ennis looked at it. 

“I want you on my side,” Lureen said. “I don’t want you resenting Bobby because of what I just said. I don’t have time for you to keep being mad.”

“So long as you ain’t gonna throw the way we live in our faces.” 

“I’ve done as much of that as I’m going to do, and I think I’ve learned who you are. Ennis, right?”

Ennis ducked his head like he was meeting a Sunday school teacher. “That’s right.” 

It was another universe for Jack to see Ennis shaking hands with Lureen, tear stains still on her cheeks. It didn’t matter that him and Lureen hadn’t ever been suited to one another or even that she’d turned into one icy bitch those last years: still there was something in her that he felt drawn to, that he admired. His heart ached to see her now, because it didn’t matter how strong she was. She couldn’t win this fight. 

Some strange wish came to him, that in some other time or place, some other lifetime, Lureen could’ve been the sister he’d never had, or a good friend with nothing of men and women to interfere with how they could be with one another. He could’ve introduced Ennis to her with no reason not to, as the man he would stay with always. _This is my Ennis._ How she would’ve smiled and shaken Ennis’s hand then too, with no death cloud hanging over her. She would’ve said to him _You take care of Jack, you hear?_

What a dream. That would never be. The best was what had just happened, and Lureen would never be any better than she was right now. He wondered if Ennis thought she’d always looked this way, instead of the beautiful, sparkling woman he’d married. 

“I wish I could take the time to get to know you,” Lureen said as their hands parted. “It would ease my mind.”

“How long are you staying?” Jack asked. 

“I need to be at Taos airport Saturday morning at eleven. I was hoping…. I know tomorrow’s Friday, Jack, but could you spend some time with me? We’ve got a lot to talk about. How we’ll set up the trust, about you being Bobby’s guardian, Daddy being the executor, lots of other things.”

“Tomorrow’s a work day, honey, and it’d not like when I was working for Newsome Equipment. We’ve got a new shipment of cattle coming in that I have got to be there for. The earliest I could get off, maybe, would be three, three-thirty. How about we talk about some of those things right now?” 

She shook her head. “I have to tell you, I have no energy left tonight. I was hoping you’d show me the house, and then I need to drive back to Taos for some rest.” 

“That’s almost a hour on a road that needs the driver’s attention,” Ennis noted, leaving other things unsaid, for Jack to speak or not. 

One look at Lureen’s pinched face decided him. “Maybe you should stay here for the night.” 

“Where? From the looks of this place, you don’t have much furniture.” She glanced toward the front room, where a card table resting on its side against the wall and their fourth kitchen chair with a busted leg made it look lonely. “I bet you only have one bed. Am I right?”

“You could have the bedroom and we could stay in the back room, there’s a—”

“Spare me, Jack. I’m not squawking about your ways because I know you won’t change. I’ve got to accept what is or deprive Bobby of both mom and dad at the same time. But I draw the line at sleeping in the bed the two of you share. Besides, I’ve got a suite reserved in the historic Taos Inn. It’s got a whirlpool that I’m going to use, and I’m not going to let being polite to you stop me from doing that. I’m past politeness, you know?” 

Jack swallowed his objections. He didn’t know that he could blame her.

The tour of the rest of the house took five minutes, and that was only because she stopped at the end to use the bathroom. Time was, Lureen would’ve spent ten minutes inside fixing her hair and her make-up, but Jack guessed she was past that too. 

“Jesus,” he said to Ennis while they waited for her by the front door. “Jesus.” 

“This is tough going, bud.” 

“Yeah.”

Lureen came out then, and they walked her outside to the Ford Mustang convertible that she’d got from the rental agency. Under almost any other circumstances, he would have made some comment to her about it, teased her, and invited Ennis to take a good look at a fine car and the fine woman who was driving it. But instead his mind was heavy on other things he couldn’t speak of. 

“Does Bobby know about Abilene?” he asked as all three of them, with Ennis trailing behind, walked over to the driver’s side of the car. 

“Not yet.” Lureen put the key in the lock and then turned around to answer Jack. “I want to keep it that way for as long as possible so things are normal for him. When you come visit next weekend, he won’t know. I want the three of us to have a normal weekend as much as possible.” 

He raised a stricken face to her. “How can you ask me to do that? I can’t—”

“Yes you can,” she said just as firmly as she used to when she’d told him that whether he liked it or not he would show for dinner with the Joneses. “I’m not telling him a thing until I have to. The boy’s got band camp, school coming up his senior year…. Then, after I tell him about me, I’ll tell him about you.” She flicked a look over his shoulder. “And your fishing buddy.” 

“I’d like to do that myself.”

“What, over the phone?”

“I was thinking I could come out again, let him know—”

“No,” she said. “You’re going to have to give in on this one, Jack, and let me have my way. I’ll know when he’s in the right state of mind, and I’ll be the one to tell him best. Ease him over the shock.”

“Maybe we could do it together….” She shook her head, and he didn’t have the heart right then to go against her. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow, okay?” 

“If you want to. But I want to control this situation, what he knows and when, and a man doesn’t know how to do that. Besides, one shock at a time, don’t you think? And…” she looked across the property and seemed to settle her sight on Wheeler Peak. “…I’m first in line.”

He hugged her because the look on her face showed that she needed it. And he wanted to, even if Ennis was standing there looking at both of them. 

“Sometimes miracles do happen, honey. You hear about remissions all the time that the doctors can’t explain.” 

“I think I’d be a fool to count on it.” She held out her hand to Ennis. “Guess you’re not a monster after all. When I think of how often I wanted to scratch your eyes out, I can’t believe our meeting has been so gentle.” 

“Not so gentle,” Ennis’s deep voice rumbled as he met her hand with his. “It’s bad news you’ve laid on us.” 

It seemed she wanted to say something to that but couldn’t. She gave him a tight smile instead, unlocked the car, and got in. She looked up at Jack. “How about I meet you where you work at three-thirty tomorrow afternoon, okay?”

“At the feedlot?”

“I want to see where you work, Jack. It’ll help me fix in my mind what your future will be like. That’s important to me right now.”

Jack noticed her eyes seemed huge, maybe because of the tears they’d cried or maybe because they were standing out in her face since she’d lost so much weight. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Okay. It’s easy to find your way to Cimarron. Just keep going on 64. I’ll show you around and then we can go someplace, get a cup of coffee. Or come back here.”

“Good. That’ll give me the morning to spend in town and see what all the fuss is. See the shops.”

“Will you be okay driving? I could take you instead, leave the Mustang here….”

“No, I’m fine. You let me be.”

“There’s another hour of sun left,” Ennis noted. “She’ll be okay.” 

Lureen looked from one to the other of them. Her eyes on Jack were soft, but they made him feel awful. 

“Tomorrow, I want you to make me understand.” 

“What’s that?” he asked, choking back tears. This saying good-bye reminded him of what would be the last time. 

She started the engine and put the car into reverse gear with her foot on the brake. “You said I didn’t understand about the two of you, you told Ennis that. I want to, because it doesn’t make sense to me. See you tomorrow, Jack. ‘Bye, Ennis.” 

Jack stood and watched as she reversed the car in front of them and started down the drive. The gravel was well mixed with dust that floated up into the air as she passed, leaving a sign of her going away. The car played tag with the trees, going in and out of his sight as it found its way to the road and finally turned right to head toward town. He stayed where he was in front of their house, in front of the door they never used, until the car was way past his seeing. Then he kept standing there until a pick-up came by going the other way and there was no chance he could hear the Mustang any more. 

And then he didn’t know what else to do or where to go. He stayed where he was. Ennis stayed too, scuffing his feet in the dirt in that way he had when he thought he should speak but didn’t know what or how. 

Jack sighed and ran the sleeve of his shirt across his eyes, though he didn’t need it. He was dry-eyed but crying inside, that was for sure. A flap of wings from overhead brought his head up. Ennis looked exposed, almost naked being outdoors without his hat on. The sunlight slanted against his hair and the side of his face, causing his eyes to squint. 

“You’d better get to your horses,” Jack said. “You don’t have much time.”

“You don’t want…. Maybe I should stick around.”

Yeah, maybe Ennis should, so Jack could bury his head in that man’s shoulder and bawl his eyes out. But he’d done his crying already, right? And he didn’t want to test the limits of Ennis’s understanding. Hell, he didn’t understand himself why he felt this so strong. A divorced man shouldn’t, should he? 

“Nah, you go do what you need to do. I’ll be okay.”

Though Ennis aimed a doubtful look his way, he said, “If you say so. Come here.”

He pulled Jack into a rough, one-armed hug, probably mindful of that preacher with the binoculars that might be aimed their way since they were outdoors. Ennis breathed against Jack’s cheek and then trudged off to get his hat. 

Jack didn’t watch when the door came open again and he heard Ennis go down to the stable. He turned toward the west and lifted his face to the lowering sun, letting the warmth play over his skin. He wasn’t wearing a hat either. Lureen hadn’t ever been much of a nature girl and never had shown any interest in hiking or camping or riding like he liked to do. Suddenly it struck Jack that this might be one of those things she’d be greedy for right now. Feeling the heat of the sun in the summertime, the wind blowing through her hair…. 

Bad feeling shuddered through him when he thought of all those years she’d fussed with her hair. Always long, big Texas hair, and now she was reduced to looking like a Girl Scout with the chemo robbing her of that beauty. 

“Fuck,” he said out loud. “Motherfuckingbastard.” 

He hoped she was enjoying that convertible. Wind through her short hair. 

Jack got his feet moving, though it took some effort. He walked all around the outside of their house, twice, moving like an old man. 

By the back there was an old vegetable garden, ringed around by rusted wire fencing, long since overgrown with weeds. Jack went down on his haunches, picked up two pieces of broken off wire, and stared at them without really seeing anything. He hadn’t taken the cancer seriously, had he? He’d felt bad about it, sure, had called and given Lureen some support over the phone, had visited a couple of times, but it had felt far away and not a part of his day to day living. It’d been easy to push it to the side because he’d been focused one hundred percent on his own life. Amarillo, Gary, that impossible day when Ennis had showed. He’d killed hope and then found a way to let it live again. With all that going on, he hadn’t had much left to give to anybody else, had he? 

Selfish bastard. It was like he’d patted Lureen on the head and said, “Good girl, don’t worry, everything’ll be okay.” But it hadn’t worked out that way. 

He got to his feet, dropped the wire, and dusted his hands off on his jeans. He couldn’t ignore Lureen and her situation any more. He couldn’t ignore what that meant about Bobby, either. His son. 

_Twelve years old and the boy was small for his age, though with an ease that brought him friends. “I want to play in the band,” he’d said as the first days of middle school approached. Lureen had a Republican Women’s meeting that night, for L.D. had played football in his day, not marched on the field, but Jack went with Bobby to meet the band teacher and sign him up one night after work. It was late August, right before the school bell rang for the year, and he wondered at the changes Bobby would throw at them. Jack wasn’t looking forward to all he’d heard about kids of this age, how they’d rather pretend they’d been found in a cabbage patch than admit they had parents who had a say in their lives. He wasn’t looking forward to higher math and reading Shakespeare either, sure to be his lot since somehow that’s the way things had shaken out between him and Lureen, him helping the boy the best he could._

_“And what instrument do you want to play?” the band director asked, showing her white teeth. Bobby was supposed to say trombone. But he’d sent Jack a sidelong look and said, clear as could be, “Drums. I’d really like to play drums.” The director had smiled and said every boy says that. How about trumpet instead? Or maybe clarinet?_

_No, he wanted to play drums._

_It takes a certain kind of personality to play drums, the teeth flasher said. And understanding parents who won’t mind you practicing at home, because there would be a lot of practicing required._

_Lureen would hate it. But L.D. might not have so much cause to complain if his grandson was a drummer in the bad. By the time Jack got finished persuading the teacher, Bobby had what he’d asked for. On the way back to the truck, already Jack was regretting it, thinking of the noise, but Bobby ran ahead, turned around and yelled back to him, “Thanks, Daddy!”_

He never had wanted them, but Jack had responsibilities.

And a new life he was sharing here in New Mexico. 

He turned his feet toward the back pasture where Ennis kept the horses, where there was a good chance Ennis would be working. And he was, a ways off in the middle of the field, with the ten-year-old chestnut he’d bought that past Monday. 

Jack leaned on one of the wooden posts and watched while Ennis gathered up the reins and flowed into the saddle. He got the horse walking in a big circle. It was nothing special to most eyes, neither man nor beast, but Jack felt hungry for the ordinary sight of Ennis riding around and around. He was so fucking sad. His hands ached, his back was one long ribbon of hurt, but most of all his throat was swollen, and it was hard to swallow. 

Ennis urged the horse that Jack couldn’t remember the name of into a trot, went the width of the field, and then into a canter. The horse bucked his hind end up before he settled, but strong hands had him calmed in a couple of strides. 

_Ennis,_ Jack said to him in his heart. _Stay on that horse. I really need you to do that, do you hear me?_

His fellow had always looked so good on any horse. He’d mount up and it seemed there was one creature, Ennis-and-the-horse-together. That was a beautiful sight to see. Ennis was certain on a horse, knew just what to do, was in charge of creating the movement, the usefulness, of letting the energy loose and riding, riding for no reason but the joy of it.

Or sometimes, riding because there was no other way to ease the heart’s pain or to escape the mind’s worries. 

_Coming out of the tent after that first night with his ass tender and his chest full of hope, seeing Ennis retreat to his horse, that one look full of accusing and not-believing what had happened, Ennis up into the saddle where he was boss and where he was sure of things. He rode off, and Jack watched him go, his feet already on the path that would take him to…._

…the pasture in New Mexico, where Ennis pulled the gelding back down to a walk. God almighty, he wanted Ennis to always feel sure of things. The same way he was on a horse, secure in his own skin. 

Even though the training session was going on a good eighty yards away, Ennis raised his hand. Jack knew he’d been seen. It took some effort to raise his hand in return. He almost never came down there to watch what took up these hours. There’d been some feeling that it would be interfering, that Ennis not only wanted to make this training thing work on his own, but he didn’t want to be observed doing it. 

Jack rubbed his hand all over his face. What did he know? Nothing. 

Except… Lureen would be gone soon, leaving Bobby in the Childress house on his own, only seventeen, a senior in high school, and what was that thing Lureen had said toward the end, about Jack being the boy’s legal guardian? Of course he’d be, he was the boy’s dad, wasn’t he? 

How would he care for Bobby? Of a sudden, he felt sure that was one of the things Lureen wanted to talk about: Bobby coming to live in Eagle Nest with his dad, because the boy couldn’t be left on his own. 

Just about everything in Jack jumped back from that idea, now so plain to him though shock had stopped him from understanding it before. He grabbed hold of the top of the fencepost with both hands, his fingers digging deep. No. No way. He couldn’t do it. 

Jack sought out Ennis and his horse again. A third person did not fit into what was going on here between them, still in the birthing stages, delicate and rare like a spring flower that would be easy to trample underfoot if care wasn’t taken. He couldn’t do that to Ennis. Couldn’t do that to himself. Could he? 

_I’m happy living with you, Jack, but I don’t need words to tell you that, you can see it, right? Cause that big hurting ball of anger and need that I’d kept in my chest, drawing me tense, it’s loosening up now. You can see from the way I walk, can’t you? These hands of mine ain’t so often clenched into fists. Remember how you used to wait for the second day of our time in the mountains for me to laugh, how you treasured the sound in your heart? You’ve been hearing me laugh since we moved in together, well, at least seen me smile most every day, cause you’re damned amusing, you dumbass…and cause you’re helping me see a world that ain’t quite so bad as I’d thought._

Ennis, happy. It wasn’t only Jack loving the life they were building here and wanting to keep it going the way it was. It wasn’t only Jack becoming a new man and living the way the good Lord had created him, being true. 

Jack pushed himself away from the fence and the sight of Ennis doing what he knew well to do, and he turned back toward the house. There was maybe twenty minutes left to the day but the air was still muggy hot. He ran his fingers through his hair as trudged along the grass of their yard, lush and green because of all the rain they’d had lately, an unusual summer season. Everything was growing well except for Lureen. What the hell was he going to do about Bobby? Three of them in the house. He couldn’t see it. A stab of fear raced through him along with two images he held in his mind at the same time, each one worse than the other in some endless cycle of impossibility: Lureen saying good-bye, Ennis saying good-bye, Lureen saying good-bye….

Movement over by their forest broke into what he didn’t want to think on anyway. Over by the line of bushes and scrub oaks that marked the beginning of the stand of trees, there was…. He stopped walking and tried to make out what he saw. A deer. A well-grown buck with more than a few points to his antlers, and how the hell had it managed to escape the hunters and their guns over the years? It stood stock still with its head up, staring straight at him, with the shadows of the leaves overhead dappling its hide, not more than twenty yards away. 

For a long minute man and animal stayed like that. The birds made their evening sounds in the trees. Far off down the valley a car horn blew. The deer breathed and Jack breathed, but neither one of them, it seemed, wanted to move from where they were. 

A purple martin swooped between them, looking for its evening meal of insects on the fly. That was enough to catch the deer’s attention. Jack watched while its head moved to follow the flight of the bird across the yard and then up into a pine. Then the buck turned, not quickly, not frightened, but sure-footed, back into the forest behind him, and disappeared into the gloom under the branches. 

Jack followed him. The deer went down the path, and there was some appeal to the shade. As soon as he got under a tree it seemed the temperature dropped twenty degrees, like stepping from one world to another, and he was grateful for the relief from the heat. He caught a glimpse of the deer bounding away, but now that he was in the forest he didn’t want to follow it anymore. Instead he set his feet to where he’d brought Ennis, to the spot where he’d hauled the fallen log, swept away the leaves and sticks, and where they’d made love out in the open like they used to do. 

He moved deeper into the special silence of nature that wasn’t silent at all, not with the squirrels chattering, and the twigs underfoot snapping, and the rustle of leaves one against the other. In the middle of it all, there was the biggest Ponderosa pine that had watched over them that Sunday morning. He stood at the base of it and listened to the evening breeze come down off the mountains, rippling through their little forest, moving the tops of all the trees. He looked up the trunk that had the slats of wood nailed from bottom to top, leading to the treehouse platform that’d been made by some kid in years past. If he tilted his head right, it seemed the steps didn’t stop. They were a stairway to heaven, on and on. 

Ennis didn’t want him to climb those steps, he’d made it clear that kidnapping-Sunday, as he thought they might not hold Jack’s weight. And it did seem a fruitless thing to do, not something a grown man should even consider. It was more like something a boy might do, but Bobby was almost grown to manhood now, and too mindful of his own dignity. If he were ever to see this tree, he wouldn’t be moved to do any climbing. 

Jack put his hand on one of the rungs of the ladder that was eye-high. He was tempted.

He couldn’t do it. He was one selfish sonuvabitch, a bad father, a worse husband. But even though Bobby would likely need him, would be left adrift by his mom’s death, he could not shove the boy into Ennis’s life. There had to be another way. 

Jack sat down right where he was. 

The minutes passed. The light that filtered in through the tops of some of the oaks changed as the sun got lower and lower, and pretty soon the mountains cut it off altogether. It got dark fast. He rested his forehead on his drawn-up knees and thought about darkness falling on Lureen, on his parents up in Lightning Flat, eventually on him and Ennis. Was Lureen happy with what she’d done with her life? Or did she have big regrets, him being one of them? He wasn’t going to ask her that the next day.

The outside yard lights came on, and there was enough brightness coming through for Jack to make out shadows and movement. He knew he should get his sorry ass in gear, but he seemed frozen right where he was. 

He heard their door open and then close, Ennis returning to the house. A minute later it opened and closed again. Just the right amount of time after that, a white glow appeared to Jack’s eyes, and he heard the scuffling sound of footsteps on leaves and pine needles. 

“Jack? You in here?”

He didn’t have to answer. Ennis must’ve ridden up to the fence and watched him from atop the horse. He knew where Jack had gone to hide and was approaching him now with a flashlight in hand. 

God, he felt like the fool that Ennis called him now and then. Sitting out here licking his wounds. What had happened to deciding he wouldn’t test the limits of his man’s understanding? He watched while the dark shadow that was Ennis feeling his way in the dark came closer.

Ennis set down the flashlight facing away, stepped behind Jack, and said, “Move up a couple feet.” 

Jack hitched forward, and Ennis sat down on the ground behind him. Spread his legs so that Jack was between them and leaned forward so they were close, back to front. Jack resisted, his spine stiff. No way Ennis could understand how he felt, this endless falling into regrets and sorrow. 

Ennis’s hand held a little harder around his waist, and his lips pressed a kiss on the side of Jack’s neck. “Come on now.” 

Jack lifted his eyes to a patch of sky showing through the branches. A few faint stars showed. From those first days on the mountain he’d been drawn to Ennis like to no other person. Had fallen into him too, hadn’t he, tangling up their lives, their hearts, wanting more than he’d been given, greedy, until now here they were, Ennis trying in his way to give something back. 

It was sometimes a gift to take, wasn’t it?

Leaning back was like releasing to something stronger than himself. Warm. Dense. Solid. Enfolding. 

He cried some over the next minutes. Ennis wiped his tears with the sleeve of his shirt, dirty from the day’s use, smelling of the land’s good dirt and horse and honest sweat. 

After a while, Ennis said, quiet as the breath of the earth, “Glad I had the chance to meet her.”

“Me too,” Jack choked out.

“Not anything like that between me and Alma, then or now.”

“Lureen doesn’t deserve this. I can’t believe I….”

“You didn’t cause the cancer, Jack. Nobody knows how that comes on.” 

“I might have. The divorce…. But that was the only way I knew.”

Ennis’s arms around him tightened. Jack felt his chin come to rest on his shoulder. 

“The divorce was the only way for us to come to be, bud.” 

Jack closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and pressed the side of his face against Ennis’s. Pushed against Ennis’s stubble because it hurt some, scraping against his skin. “Is that how it works? A trade? My life with you paid for with her life? How is that right?” 

“There’s nothing right about it. It just is. We don’t know how it happens. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure it. Let that part be, Jack.” 

Let Lureen be, release her to whatever was waiting for her. In the forest, in the night, in the darkness behind his eyelids, it felt close. Jack let go of the last bit of his resistance and let all his weight sag back against Ennis. 

“Crying like that wears a person out,” Ennis said, his lips moving close to Jack’s ear. “I remember.”

“When?”

“When my folks drove off that curve. Awful scary to be left without them. Then…. You know.” 

“Yeah,” Jack breathed. He might’ve felt like he was hauling weight around, but Ennis had almost killed himself when Jack left him. 

“You lived with Lureen a long time. You still love her some, I reckon.” 

Love her? Jack tested his feelings, his memories, found the truth of it, and that made it worse. 

“No,” he whispered. No.

*****


	8. Gifts

Ennis took Delilah out that Friday afternoon, looking for something to grab his attention so he wouldn’t have to think about Lureen or Bobby or Jack’s tears the night before, and figuring he owed it to Rocky to get the kinks worked out of the mare’s stride. She nearly unseated him before he’d settled into the saddle, and he was glad there wasn’t anybody around to see her hijinks across the stable yard before he got her under control. She jumped stiff-legged like a horse that hadn’t been let out of her stall for days.

“Settle down now,” he told her in his soothing voice, and her ears flicked back to listen. “You remember me, right?” 

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t, the fool horse, or at least that’s what she led Ennis to believe with a head toss and flashing eyes. He urged her from the yard, and her hooves clattered over the rocks that stuck up right before the ground began to rise. 

He took her to the high pastures, past the broodmares, up to the three-year-olds and even past them. The mare worked hard, putting her head down and her shoulders into it as they climbed at a steady pace. He wasn’t sure where the Buckminster property ended and the Carson National Forest land started, but it was likely he was past that boundary line. He needed the distance for this horse and to escape the worry of his thoughts. He pushed her into a canter when it was safe to do so and kept her collected behind the bit even at the walk. She shied more than an hour into the lesson when a yellow-bellied marmot went scurrying from one rock to another right under her nose. 

“The hell you say,” he chided her once he had her back on all four legs. “Things happen, girl, and you’ve got to get used to that. You think that bitty thing’s gonna do you harm?”

It wasn’t a bitty thing to Delilah, that was for sure. 

He checked the sun and decided it was time for him to turn back, so he could make it to the home stable to supervise the boys and the hands in the last chores of the afternoon. He leaned forward and scratched behind the horse’s ears, under the headstall, that special place he’d learned was good for her. 

“You done okay,” he murmured. “Best as you could the way you are, anyway.” 

The straight path down took them back fast. Floyd and Rocky were tending to the middle level operation with the mares and Floyd waved as Ennis went by. When he got down to the valley, he found both Matt and Tag in the stable. Ennis swung down from Delilah and started to uncinch the saddle. Tag looked at him suspiciously, as if he was wondering if Ennis would say anything about his Tuesday morning arrival. But Matt, he was always friendly, and he came over to Ennis now.

“Mom was looking for you half an hour ago. Did she ever find you?”

He pulled saddle and saddlecloth off, and Delilah shook with the pleasure of being freed from the weight. “Nope.”

“She said to tell you she needed to see you right away.”

“Right away? I’ve got to cool Delilah down first.” 

The boy shrugged. “I don’t think it was an emergency or anything, but you know mom, she usually means what she says. She’s up at the house now. I guess I can take care of the mare for you.” 

Ennis wiped his hands on his jeans. “You do that, but be careful. She can be a handful.”

“Yeah, she sure acted up with Dad the other day, did you know? But he really likes her. I do too.” Matt was holding the mare’s bridle, and he stroked her nose. Which she didn’t take to kindly at all, jerking her head up and snorting loud enough to fill the aisle with her fear. 

“Hey, now,” Ennis said. “She don’t go for that. Some horses don’t like to be touched there. Up here by her ears, or under her cheek, that’s where you’ll get her to stand quiet for your hand.” 

He spent another fifteen minutes with the boys before he turned his feet toward the house, trying not to make plain his reluctance to move in that direction. His Timex showed past four-thirty already, which meant that whatever Betty Jo wanted him to do would just have to wait until Monday. The bathroom off the back door was handy, so he pissed and washed the day’s dirt off his hands, though there was something in him that would have preferred going to her dirty. What point that would have proved, he had no idea. It wasn’t like anything he could do would take the venison out of their freezer. They’d not eaten a bite of it yet. 

When he was finished, he knocked on the doorway that led into what the family called the gameroom, where he’d sat before dinner that time. It didn’t feel right to barge farther into the family’s home without being invited. Could be he wasn’t invited anymore anyway. “Hello? Anybody home?”

A couple seconds passed. He swiped the hat off his head. “Betty Jo? You here?”

A clatter from the basement answered him, and then the door to the stairs burst open and Davey ran out into the kitchen. Right behind him was BJ, calling for him to wait. 

“Oh, Ennis,” she said, a little breathlessly. “I’m glad you’re here. I’ve got to tell—” The phone ringing interrupted her, and she made a face. “Oh, darn. Wait just a minute.” She grabbed the phone off the wall like she had better things to do with her time. “Hello? Oh, yes. Thanks for calling back. I’ve got a question about the latest claim.”

While she talked, Davey scampered from the kitchen to where Ennis was standing. There was a laundry basket full of toys right at his feet, and the boy went rooting around in it. He pulled out a white and yellow plastic airplane. “Zoom!” he said as clear as could be, like there wasn’t anything wrong with him at all. He held the toy over his head. “Ennis!” 

“I see it,” Ennis said, not sure what the boy expected of him and keeping an eye on Betty Jo. 

She stretched the phone cord to reach a piece of paper from the counter, and called to him. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this call. I’ve been waiting all day for them to get back to me. I’ll try to keep it short.”

Off Davey went, back to the kitchen. He dropped to his mom’s feet and ran the toy over her shoes. 

“It’s claim number 27-47654-BU. Do you see it? You denied it, and I don’t understand….”

Ennis looked around. It didn’t seem to him she would be getting off the phone soon, and he felt like the uninvited guest at Thanksgiving, standing there in her house with no purpose. He supposed Betty Jo wouldn’t mind if he took a load off his feet and sat where he’d sat before. Moving slowly, checking to see if she might object to him abandoning his sentry post by the door, he found his way to the couch and eased down, balancing his hat on his knee. 

“You approved the exact same—”

“Zoom!”

“—procedure ten months ago, which is why—”

“Zoom!”

“Yes, it’s for my son, David Harrison Buckminster. Could you wait a second?” She put her hand over the receiver and looked down at where Davey was doing his best to make skid marks up the cabinet door under the sink. “Davey, go play in the gameroom. Go play with Ennis. Ennis,” she called, “I hope you won’t mind for a few minutes. Yes, I’m still here,” she said back into the phone. “He needs those tests every year because of his heart condition. No, it’s not optional at all, his doctor….”

The boy came toward him right away, his blue eyes sparkling like he was headed for mischief, and not looking at all like a kid with heart problems. Sure enough, Davey right away threw himself into Ennis’s lap, coming near to crushing his hat if he hadn’t snatched it away just in time. 

“See here,” Ennis said, uncomfortable that BJ was probably watching this. He set Davey back on his feet. “You got that plane to play with, not me.” 

The boy took no offense. He just picked up the toy and started making flying sounds again, though it appeared to Ennis that he thought it was more like a truck or a car, since he was running it along the brown carpet. And then over Ennis’s boot toe, climbing up the laces, up his shin….

“What you think I am, a highway? A runway?” 

The boy turned his smushed-up face toward Ennis and smiled big. “Go with Daddy in the truck.” 

“I bet you did, but that’s no reason to be using my leg—”

Davey had no reason to listen to him and went back to running the plane all over Ennis. He went all the way up his leg, barely missing his privates, and then he climbed into Ennis’s lap and started to make circuits over the striped shirt he was wearing that day. Up and down his arms, once over his ear and the top of his head. Ennis tried to sit quietly through it all, but the boy was laughing out loud and having so much fun that he couldn’t help but eventually let loose a smile. 

In the other room BJ’s voice had gotten loud and positive. “I don’t see the sense of having medical insurance if you don’t pay valid claims. What do I need to do in order to get this claim processed properly? Doctor Humboldt will—”

It’d been a long time since Ennis had been with a child this young, without any cares, and he’d never had to care for a young boy at all, with all this energy. He supposed this was what Jack’d had to cope with when Bobby was a youngster. It was hard for Ennis to imagine that Bobby was close to being grown now. Almost grown, only not quite yet. That was the whole problem, wasn’t it? 

He took the plane from Davey’s hand and ran it along the sofa cushion. “Here, you see how it goes slow at first, then gets faster? Then up in the air it goes.” 

Davey watched like it was the most interesting thing he’d seen all week. After Ennis demonstrated three times, he took over, using about everything in the room to give his toy takeoff space: the cushion, the arm of the sofa, the top of the television, and over and over Ennis’s leg from ankle up to knee. 

“You’re playing rocketship now,” Ennis said as Davey brought the toy straight up into the air. “You wanna go into space? You wanna be an astronaut?”

It must have been a word he’d heard before, or maybe just hearing Ennis say it caught his attention, because Davey stopped still and said, “Astronaut! Astronaut!” 

“That’s what I said, little rascal.” He reached out and poked the boy in the ribs with two fingers. Davey giggled, dropped the plane, and stuck his thumb in his mouth. “You ticklish? My girls were ticklish right there.” 

Ennis glanced into the kitchen, but even though Betty Jo wasn’t looking in his direction, he figured it’d be best to stop with the tickling. Besides, he wasn’t prepared to rev the boy up any further, so he kept his hands to himself. Davey stared at him for a space of time, a machine that’d been running on high all of a sudden come to rest. He mumbled something around his thumb that no way Ennis was able to figure out. 

“What’s that?”

Davey went over to the television and picked up the remote. He said, “On!” 

“Okay, that I can do.” 

When the television came on Mister Rogers was singing something about never going down a drain, and Davey flopped down on the floor to watch. Ennis watched too, as there wasn’t anything else to do, until a couple minutes later Betty Jo put down the phone and came toward him.

Ennis unfolded himself from the sofa and stood before her, looking down. Betty Jo was really a dab of a woman, about as tall as Alma but more like a squat dynamo from the electric plant. Not a very peaceful woman, including some of her interfering ways.

“I’m sorry that took so long.”

It seemed she was still trying to pretend she’d never found out the truth of his circumstances, talking to him naturally. Maybe he could find a way to do the same. It wasn’t hard to say, “That’s okay.”

“Thanks for watching Davey while I had that conversation. He’s been all wound up today.”

“He’s no trouble.”

BJ laughed out loud, and it didn’t sound fake to him. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding! He’s nothing but trouble, but he’s my baby.” 

Cautiously, Ennis asked, “Uh, he okay? I mean, I heard you make some mention of heart troubles.” 

“Don’t you know about those?” she asked, as if he should have absorbed the information just cause he was on the ranch most days. Well, he couldn’t, not if nobody told him. “A lot of kids with Down Syndrome have heart problems. Davey had surgery when he was five months old to repair a hole in his heart, but we still have to watch him very carefully. That’s why he has electrocardiograms; there’s a good cardiologist in Taos we take him to, then once a year down to the hospital in Santa Fe for a few days. And then there are the ear infections, of course.”

“Ear infections?” This was all news to Ennis. He glanced down at Davey being fascinated by some puppet show. The boy looked fine to his eyes.

“We dodged a bullet with that one, since he doesn’t have any hearing loss and so many Down’s kids do. But you should see him in the wintertime, poor kid. He’s on his fourth set of ear tubes, and it seems he’s always on antibiotics then.” 

“I am sorry to hear that.” 

“I saw him climbing all over you. I hope you didn’t mind.” 

“No, he made me think of my own girls when they were little.”

Betty Jo got a funny look in her eyes, and sudden he knew what she was thinking, wondering how he could be living with Jack but having children. Wanting to know his business.

“I forgot. You have children too.”

Ennis wished he had something to do with his hands. “Your boy said you needed me for something?” 

But that didn’t seem to help put her at ease. She bent down and picked up Davey’s toy, walked over to the basket, and tossed it in. 

“That’s right. Your friend Jack called.” 

It took a couple seconds for Ennis to realize what she meant. His friend Jack…. Jack? What the hell…. He knew the frown showed clear on his face but he didn’t give a damn. Either this was really bad news or Jack had lost his mind, calling the ranch in the middle of the day, calling the ranch at all. He found that he’d taken a couple steps without even meaning to do so. He ducked his head and backed up. BJ knew about him and Jack already, he told himself. This was old news to her, nothing new.

“Jack called here? Everything okay?” 

He heard BJ clear her throat. “I think everything’s fine. He left a message. He asked if you could meet him and Lureen at the animal preserve at six o’clock.”

“The preserve over there in Cimarron?” He risked a quick glance at her. 

“That’s the only one that I know of around here. Oh, and he asked if you could bring fried chicken for three with you from Sandy’s. I know there aren’t any take-out places in Cimarron.” 

“That’s it?” 

“That’s all. He was very polite, apologizing for disturbing me.”

“You ain’t no secretary.” 

“No, but I don’t mind taking messages like this. Jack seems to be a very nice man.” 

Now what the hell was he supposed to say to that? No, he’s not nice, he’s a shithead who’s never known how to keep his mouth shut? Or maybe explain that Jack’s good judgment had been turned by the bad news he’d got the day before? Ennis had been put on the spot here in front of Betty Jo, cause he sure couldn’t pretend that he didn’t know what she was talking about. 

“Ennis,” she said. He removed his gaze from the floor and looked into her sky-colored eyes, the best part of her round, ordinary face. “It’s okay,” she said. 

Well, good for her, that meant he had no cause to feel under the microscope cause they were standing here discussing the man who sucked Ennis’s dick. 

“No, really, it’s okay.” 

She looked like she wanted to say more and didn’t know how, and Ennis figured that was a good thing. Temporary, though. 

“If you’re going to be meeting them at six, you’d better get going. You’ll want to go back home and shower and change, and then there’s always a little more traffic on Friday night. It’s past five now.” 

It seemed he was gonna have to get used to this, Betty Jo knowing his business and not afraid to remark on it from time to time. Either get used to that or find another job, and he balked at that thought. This job suited him and he knew how to do it down to the ground. Plus there was the chance he had to make something better of himself; the Buckminsters had a fine operation that would likely only get better.

“Reckon so.” 

He went back to the couch for his hat and then turned to see Davey looking up at him. The youngster made him think of the company that came along with working at the Cross B ranch. Floyd wasn’t so bad, and he didn’t mind the boys. 

“Ennis going home?”

He stooped and ran his hand over Davey’s head, mussing up his hair. “Yeah, I’m going home, looks like.” He straightened and nodded to Betty Jo. “Thanks for letting me know. You gotta excuse Jack for bothering you with our business.”

“Like I said, I don’t mind, Ennis.”

He wanted to say something more, to make sure she didn’t get the wrong idea. He supposed he had to, the position Jack’d put him in. “Lureen, she’s Jack’s ex-wife. She’s just visiting for a couple days, passing through.”

Understanding lit up BJ’s eyes, and maybe there was some relief there too. Who knew what she’d been thinking? 

“I see. It’s nice that they’re on friendly terms. Well, I hope you have a good time tonight, you deserve it.” 

He didn’t figure he would, considering what they’d be talking about. 

Ennis walked across the room, put his hand on the doorknob, and settled his hat on. “Evening, ma’am.”

*****

Even though he soaped himself up fast and then practically jumped into clean clothes—his second best pair of jeans, a white and green striped summer shirt, all the while thinking of Lureen’s eyes on him—Ennis still was ten minutes late when he pulled into the dirt parking lot past the sign that said “Cimarron Creek Animal Preserve: Saving Wildlife.” Being late bothered him. 

He blinked at the sprinkling of cars and trucks in the lot, cause he’d expected it to be empty. But it seemed there were folks besides crazy Jack who thought a good way to spend a Friday evening was with the lions and the tigers. Jack had said bears was there too, hadn’t he? 

There wasn’t a scrap of shade anywhere to be found to protect from the cloudless sky. He parked up close, pulled on the emergency brake, and put his hand on the big bag of fried chicken that had kept him company on the drive over. The smell was sure better than what was coming through the open window, the thick and nose-wrinkling smell of wild animal. 

Jack was standing in front of a long, seen-better-days, one-story building that looked to be put up one section at a time over the last forty years. A wooden fence sagging here and there and storage buildings to each side hid what was behind from view, which made sense if the place wanted to charge folks money to see the cages. No Lureen was in sight. Jack was dressed up pretty fancy, navy blue Dockers and an open-necked cream-colored shirt, black shoes shined bright that matched his black hat, but then he normally dressed fine for work. Through the windshield, he watched Jack take a puff on a cigarette. Ennis felt bad about that. Jack had just about quit when Ennis had given in to wanting a smoke or two, and now here was Jack going at it more regularly. He shouldn’t of encouraged him. 

Jack’d had him spotted since he’d pulled in, he was sure. Ennis got out of the cab, pushed the door shut, and closed the distance between them. Jack looked like a man who’d been doing hard labor for hours, wiped out. But unless Ennis didn’t know his fella, under that there was some relief now, like the burden the day had laid on those shoulders would be carried better with some help. 

It was getting to be a habit, them meeting up like this and shaking hands, though this time Ennis didn’t say anything and Jack was the same, just them looking and touching palm to palm. 

“Where’s Lureen?” Ennis asked once they’d parted. 

Jack jerked his head toward the open doorway behind him. Ennis could see a counter, a cash register, a display of t-shirts, and a teenage girl who was figuring something on a calculator. 

“She’s sitting down waiting for us in there. It’s cooler.” 

“How’s she doing?”

“Not too bad, considering. I’ve had to remind myself that she’s got reason to be mad at the world. She does seem determined to spend all of Bobby’s inheritance on gifts for her friends. We haven’t seen a single animal in the twenty minutes we’ve been here, but she’s bought out half the gift shop. The back seat of the Mustang is overflowing with the stuff.”

“How’re you doing?”

Jack put the cigarette up to his mouth, pursed his lips around it, and then before drawing in any smoke took it out. He held it between his fingers down by his side again. “Me? Thrown, stomped on, and never made eight seconds.” 

“You two have a talk?”

“A talk, Lureen crying, a fight, more crying, shit. We gave the coffee shop waitress enough to gossip about for a year.” Jack dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his shoe. “I thought you wouldn’t make it, Ennis. That you’d got pissed off because I had to call the ranch.” 

“Yeah. Don’t make a habit of that.” 

“I’m pussy-whipped,” Jack said, staring down at the ground. “She wouldn’t hear of you not joining us.”

“She could have made that plain last night.”

“We weren’t thinking straight then.”

“That’s for sure. So, we gonna eat?” He lifted the chicken bag.

“They’ve got some picnic tables out back before the animal pens start. Yeah, let’s eat.”

Ennis reached for his wallet as they stepped onto the wooden porch of the preserve office, but Jack shook his head. “Don’t bother. We aren’t paying admission. Lureen took care of it for all three of us already.” 

“Huh. Guess there’s no way to deny her, is there?”

“Nope,” Jack said. 

Ennis shoved his wallet back in his jeans pocket. “She doesn’t have cause to be kind to us. Doesn’t she get it? You were cheating on her all those times with me.” 

Jack’s shoulders were about as low as they could go. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe she thinks she’s paving her way to heaven.” 

More like, Ennis thought, she was considering Bobby and how he was gonna fit into their lives. A cramp hit his stomach, like it was being squeezed. He stood it, cause things were gonna be that way.

Inside, past the kid with the calculator, and past the gift shop offering mainly useless things to Ennis’s eyes, was a low-lit museum with maps and pictures of natural habitat in Africa and Asia. Ennis barely glanced at any of it. They went through the twists and turns looking for Lureen, with Jack saying under his breath _this is just like her, always going her own way, where the hell did she get to?_ until they pushed through the back door and looked down at the place people paid money to see. 

Ennis squinted against the sudden sunlight. The parking lot might have been nothing much, but it seemed the best was saved for the animals. Green grass, big bushes, and a scattering of cottonwood trees here and there made the space look like a garden well-cared for, except for the big wire enclosures all over. Ennis had taken the girls to the Casper Zoo a couple times, and there’d been a menagerie associated with a traveling carnival that had come to Riverton when they were still young. Both those places had been sad affairs, to his mind. Cramped, smelly cause the cages weren’t cleaned regularly, with miserable looking animals that would have been better off dead. 

But he saw right off that the animal preserve was different. The cages was big, with connections like wire tunnels between two at a time. They weren’t close enough to see detail, but the lions and the tigers were there. While Ennis watched, a male lion got up from where it’d been flopped down on a truck tire, yawned, and let out a big roar. 

A little girl who was standing in front of the cage with her folks gave a high-pitched scream. There weren’t too many folks around, but those that were all stopped what they were doing and looked in the lion’s direction. 

All except Jack, who said, “There she is,” and pointed. 

Off to the left on a small rise, set apart by a winding path and a low rock wall, was the preserve’s picnic area. Ten or twelve tables were scattered about, some even with grills at one end. Lureen had staked out a spot at the only table in the shade. She sat under a willow tree that nodded low over her, with not another soul at any of the other dusty tables, looking like a maverick heifer not part of the herd. There was a big circle of dirt at her feet, no grass, for it had long been worn away. The place wasn’t ideal for a picnic from Ennis’s way of looking at things, but he didn’t figure he could eat much anyway. 

Lureen faced toward them, leaning back against the table with her legs crossed and some wispy smoke curled up from the cigarette between her fingers. “Hey, there, Ennis,” she said as they came up to her, like he was somebody she’d known from way back when, for years and years.

In a way he supposed he was known to her, since Jack had been making those fishing trips all their married lives. And from what Jack’d told now and then, Ennis had been a ghost in the Twist bedroom, the same as Jack had often loomed large in Ennis’s thoughts when him and Alma had done the deed. Sometimes, maybe most times, when he’d slipped into Alma, either woman-way or man-way, he’d closed his eyes and it’d been Jack he was fucking. 

“You feeling better, honey?” Jack asked. He crouched down by the end of the bench and put his hand on her knee. 

“Don’t make me out to be some wilting rose,” she said as she brushed his hand away. “I’m not on death’s door yet.”

“I was only thinking that—”

“Don’t think, Jack, it’s not what you’re suited to.” 

Jack stood up abruptly and shoved one hand in his pocket. 

“Sorry,” Lureen said right away, though it didn’t sound like she was. “I’m tired, and I’m dying, and I shopped all morning in half the galleries in Taos without finding anything for my mama. Let me finish this cigarette and then we can eat, okay?”

“Anything you say,” Jack said, but he sounded a hundred miles away. Ennis figured he must have been putting up with a lot of the same through the afternoon. Here was a different side of Lureen than she’d shown the night before.

“You see,” Lureen looked up toward Ennis, “why Jack and me weren’t meant to be together anymore. Besides the obvious. Jack, when was the last time we did it, anyway, you remember?”

Jack was looking in the direction of the feedlot, at least half a mile according to Ennis’s reckoning, and Ennis was feeling like he would have done better to work overtime at the ranch. “I can’t say that I remember,” Jack said. 

She inhaled one last breath of smoke and stubbed the cigarette out on the wooden bench. “I hope you have better luck with him then I did, Ennis.” 

He wanted to say that she had no cause to speak like that. That his and Jack’s lives was their own private business. That him and Jack was suited to each other in ways that Lureen and Jack never had been, and he’d thank her to keep her tongue in her mouth. But he spoke no such words. She was dying. 

But it seemed Jack would speak. With hard eyes he looked down at her and said, “Ennis and me are doing better than you can imagine. We don’t need luck, Lureen.”

“Good,” she said, spitting out the word. “I’ll take it all with me to my grave then.” In a hurry, she bent over to root through the purse at her feet, but she stayed longer with her head down than she needed. Jack’s shoulders slumped, and he ran a hand across his eyes. Then he crouched down again next to Lureen and touched her arm. 

“Honey, I’m sorry,” he said soft. 

Hell, she was crying, right out there in the open. “I know,” she said with a sniff. “A fine way for me to act when your…your…when Ennis is here.”

“You’re under a lot of stress. He doesn’t mind. He understands. Right, Ennis?”

Just about the last place he wanted to be was where he was, in public, saddled with a weepy woman who had cancer and he had no clue how to act toward. Anybody who’d known the Ennis Del Mar who’d lived in Wyoming would have bet one hundred dollars against the likelihood of him standing still for any of it. 

“Sure,” he said, hoping she heard him over her sniffling. “I get it. Uh, maybe you feel like some chicken?” He fished into the top of the bag, pulled out a napkin, and stepped forward with it in hand. “Here.” 

She gave a little tear-flavored laugh, saying, “Ennis Del Mar, hankie man,” and took it. 

Ennis didn’t take too kindly to that, but Jack had made clear Lureen had a tongue on her. He guessed that was one showing of it. 

She wiped at her eyes. “Jack, I’m sorry I bit your head off. I don’t got the right to be like that with you now we’re not married any more. Come on, Ennis has a good idea. Let’s eat.” 

Corn on the cob, coleslaw, chicken, and iced tea was what he’d brought, what he favored and Jack too. He’d had no idea what Lureen might like but figured he could at least please the two of them. He set the containers out on the gray planks of the table, trying not to notice the way Jack patted her on the back, trying not to listen to the soothing sounds Jack made as Lureen blew her nose and swung her legs around so she could face the food. Jack came around to the other side of the table where Ennis was and sat himself down like it was no relief: just another hard thing to do. Ennis put the last iced tea in front of Lureen and then lowered himself down to sit next to Jack. 

Jack set both his hands on the rough wood in front of him. And then he turned and met Ennis’s eyes for a long couple of seconds. A good look now, maybe with a touch of satisfaction to it. Nothing else going on, just looking for an eyelash longer than maybe he should have if he didn’t have anything to say, and then Jack turned away. 

Ennis thought that maybe something important had happened, some shift in the ground under his feet that he should know what it was, but he didn’t. This was different, sitting next to Jack instead of across from him, with the two of them facing Lureen. Felt right, though. 

He reached for the bucket of chicken to cover up his confused feeling. It seemed him and Jack got important stuff settled in two places, in bed after making love—when Ennis stayed awake, anyway—and over food. Ennis had memories of Jack’s face across campfires, over sandwiches they’d packed when they took the horses out, sharing beer or whiskey…. Before-time memories, pretty good ones, though always laced with regret, a whole houseful of what-could-have-beens, and knowing it couldn’t have been any other way. After-time memories were sharper, even harder. Jack saying _I got me another man_ across the table at _Steak and Ale_ in Amarillo. His face getting tight with anger when Ennis’s fear at _Denny’s_ tied his tongue. Trying not to show his panic when Ennis told him over steak and potatoes he was going back to Wyoming. 

Those memories didn’t mean shit, cause they’d got past them. They had other things going on now. 

He took the lid off the chicken bucket, waved away a fly that was buzzing near, and offered it across the table to Lureen. “What kind do you want?” he asked. “Got a little of everything.”

Drumsticks, she said, which was good cause Jack went for the white meat and he liked wings. What wasn’t so good were the folks he saw over Lureen’s shoulder, looking their way. Only a man and a woman and their two kids intending to amaze themselves with wild animals, but the man definitely checked them out. Ennis sat there and let himself get looked at. It was okay. Just him and his man and his man’s ex-wife. The asshole could look all he wanted. He wasn’t gonna see anything, the same as Ennis had told Lureen the day before she wasn’t gonna see anything. 

Lureen chewed on her chicken leg and swallowed, holding it in front of her with her elbows tucked in, reminding Ennis of the church ladies that he’d known in the early Alma years. All of a sudden he remembered that Lureen’d had a mastectomy. One of her breasts was gone. He used a plastic spoon to put cole slaw on an upturned lid and kept his eyes down. Shit. 

“Ennis,” Lureen said, sounding a lot like BJ had a while earlier, “you reminded me yesterday that you have two girls. How are they doing?”

He felt the food join the rock in his stomach. “They’re fine.”

“They’re both grown, right?” 

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“Living with their mother?”

“For now.”

Jack put in, “Junior’s going to culinary school in about a month. In Sheridan. Jenny’s headed for nursing school.”

Lureen put her chicken down and took a sip from her drink. “It’s good that they’re settled. Or on the way to being settled. I hope Bobby can find his way the same.” 

She looked off to the side and her chin trembled. Here it was gonna come, Ennis figured. He picked up a napkin and crushed it in his fingers like it was the end of eating instead of the beginning as he watched while Lureen struggled to get herself under control. Finally she managed to say, “We got to talk about Bobby now. Now that Ennis is here.”

Next to him, Jack was concentrating on the white plastic fork he was holding before him in both hands. “I reckon.” 

“First, I want you to know that—”

“Wait a minute,” Ennis put in. “I gotta say something.” 

Jack took in a breath. “Me too.”

Normally, Ennis would have sat back and let Jack have his say. But he’d been working up to this all day and had spent sleepless hours the night before coming to accept it. 

“I said it first.” Ennis turned to Lureen. “Jack and me ain’t had a chance to talk this over. It’s come at us too fast. But it ain’t hard to figure what needs to be decided. The best thing for the boy once you’re gone is for him to stay in Childress, let him live where he’s familiar with things.” 

Lureen was nodding. Jack went real still. 

Ennis put one elbow up on the weathered wood and turned to send his words where they’d best be heard. “Jack, I’ve been thinking on this situation. It’s true we could go back there. It wouldn’t make any difference to my horses. They don’t care what state they’re in and I can train them anywhere. I could find ranch work there too.”

Jack’s eyes had gone wide, staring at him like he was saying something not to be believed. “You’re kidding. You’re actually considering going with me—” 

“Hold on. What I’m saying is that it might look like we can, but we can’t. No way. I’m sorry for your boy, but think of the people who know you there already, people who know you as married to Lureen. They wouldn’t take kindly to you being with me. We wouldn’t be able to live the way you want to, the way we live here.” 

Jack searched his face. “And you…if we moved to Childress, that would be…. You’d want to live the way we live here?”

Ennis cast his gaze down to his fingers, stretched out on the table between them, and then back up to the man he’d gone without for months at a time for fully half his life. “I’ve got used to it. I know that Childress would be best for Bobby,” he plowed on, “letting him finish school there, but it won’t do the two of us any good if you get jumped every time you go to put gas in the truck. So Childress is out.”

He’d not said anything about Duncan, the guy who’d stopped them on the road and would have bashed in Jack’s head with a tire iron given the chance. There was no need for Lureen to know about that. But Jack remembered, he was sure. 

And he’d not said anything about Randall Malone. He didn’t want to go down that road. Neither of them should.

“Ennis….” Lureen reached across the table. She came close to putting her hand on his arm but didn’t. Her voice was gentle as she said “You don’t have to—”

He’d promised himself in the dead of night that he was not gonna ask Jack to choose between him and Bobby. Cause the boy was Jack’s son, he said what had to be said. “The only thing for it is to bring him here. We got the extra room he can use. He can bring his own furniture and we can get him into Angel Fire High School where the Buckminster boys go. Maybe we could get them to introduce him around so it won’t be so hard, the change. It won’t be what he’s used to, but it’s the best we can do, I think.” 

There, it was said now, and he couldn’t unsay it. A teenage boy, let into what him and Jack had going, a precious thing growing between them sure to be made foul by the eyes of judgment. Five months, that’s all they’d had. For about half a second last night Ennis had considered packing it in and leaving, cause Jack had responsibilities. 

It’d taken the next half a second for him to know there was no way he was gonna give Jack up. It hadn’t been a hard decision. It had come to him in the first flash of considering it, though all day he’d worried at how it would work out. He had no idea how…how he… How could he live the Jack-way, the way he’d got into the rhythm of, with the boy looking on? Everything would change. 

It didn’t matter. That was how it was gonna be, him and Jack and Bobby, even though he couldn’t imagine it. All three. Hell, Jack could say the pope himself had to come live with them, and Ennis would find a way to make that work. 

He leveled his gaze at Lureen. “Your boy will be welcome with us.” 

That was his truth. Cause there wasn’t any more choosing going on between him and Jack. They were set, weren’t they? 

“No,” Jack said. “No way.” He pushed away from the table and walked quick steps away, to where a trailing frond of the willow tree touched his shoulder. He brushed it away and then stood with his hands by his sides

“We can’t move back to Texas, bud,” Ennis said to his back. 

“I’m not saying that we should.” Jack turned around. “But after all we’ve been through…. I can’t ask you to do this.”

Ennis swung his legs around the end of the bench and got to his feet. “He’s your boy.” 

Jack took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. His voice cracked. “I know he’s my boy! But you’re…. Ennis, we’ve come so far, but it isn’t…. This would be the best way to send you back to Wyoming that I know of.”

He got up close to where Jack was looking like the sun had disappeared for good. “I am right here,” Ennis said as surely as he could.

“That’s what you say now, but suppose Bobby…. If he can’t deal with us together, what kind of life could we live? Hell, even if he does accept us, we won’t be able to live free with him in the house, you know that. And I’ve spent the last twenty-one years dreaming of exactly what is going on between us right now. You can’t want this. Tell me you don’t.”

Jack’s words went straight down into him, cutting through his layers to the core. “I don’t want it,” Ennis said, looking down at the space between them. “You know what I want, and it ain’t this. But we don’t have a choice.” He looked back up, straight into Jack’s eyes. “I ain’t sending you off to Childress or anyplace else without me, you hear? And common sense says we can’t both go back to live there. What’s to become of Bobby if he’s not with us, huh?” 

“Would somebody kindly let the boy’s mom have a word?” 

Ennis wrenched his sight away from Jack and blinked once or twice at Lureen. She was shaking her head at them, no trace of tears now, only determination showing the kind of woman Jack had married.

“It’s a wonder we have any civilization at all, with men in charge.” She left the table and came over to them. “Listen, the two of you, I’ve got that part of it covered.”

Took Jack a couple of seconds to ask, “I hope you’re not suggesting he live with L.D. and Faye, because you know he doesn’t get along with them. He’ll go crazy if—”

She talked right over him. “Ennis is right, the best place for Bobby is staying in town where he’s grown up. If he doesn’t graduate from high school with his friends, it won’t be right. I don’t want him coming here living with you. It wouldn’t be good for him, and it seems it sure wouldn’t be good for the two of you. I’ve got a better solution. The Montcriefs.”

For a second Jack looked confused, but then some hope flickered like a light going on. 

“Charlie’s family?”

“Bobby’s only been Charlie’s best friend for years. They’re down at band camp in Austin right now, rooming together. Rose and Dan have an extra room, and they’re good people. I know if we asked them if Bobby could live with them until he graduates, they’d say yes.” 

“That might work. Bobby gets along fine with them. But if they—”

“I know for sure they’ll say yes cause I already asked them. On Wednesday, day before I came here.” 

“Shit, Lureen, I—”

“You know it’s best, so quit complaining.”

“Yeah, but….”

“But what?”

“It ain’t right,” Ennis said, though he wanted to find a way to make this happen. The prospect of keeping the boy at arm’s length for as long as they could was like hearing jail time might not need to be served after all. “Jack should have some say.”

“He’s my son, Lureen, just as much as he’s yours. I don’t know how I can stay his dad if he lives with Charlie’s family. He’ll forget all about me.”

“It didn’t sound to me like you were too interested in staying in his life at all. But it’s not like he needs to be with Charlie full time. Only during school time, his last year of high school.”

Relief smoothed out Jack’s frown and lightened his eyes. “I could see him on the holidays.” Jack turned to Ennis. “Holidays okay with you? He’ll have time off for Christmas. He could come out here then.” 

“I said he could come permanent, I ain’t gonna holler over a couple weeks.” 

“Glad you’re volunteering,” Lureen said, “because that’s what I want promises for. He can live in Childress, but you’ve got to stay part of his life, Jack.”

“I will. I want to.”

“That means you try to get him to spend time with you, get him used to what’s going on here so he’d not left feeling like he doesn’t have a dad. Christmas, spring break, summertime.”

“Okay.”

“Phone calls. Helping with college applications, besides paying for them. Being with him for his birthday. Visiting him, not just always waiting for him to come out here.”

“Okay.” 

“And next summer, the whole summer, before he goes off to college. He’ll be eighteen, so you won’t be able to force him to spend the time with you. I can’t say what kind of comfort he’ll have with you being a…being with a man. You’ve got to promise that if he can’t come to terms with his daddy being gay, you won’t hold it against him with the trust money.” 

“You know I won’t do that.”

Lureen shook her head, suddenly looking weary. “I can’t predict anything, and I won’t be here to do anything about it. We’re talking about this like it’s some game, but Bobby won’t have his mom around to help him. And I won’t have him.” 

Jack put his hands on her shoulders. “Honey, don’t worry. I promise I will do my best by him.”

Her mouth twisted. “Your best so long as he doesn’t interfere with whatever it is you’ve got going here with your boyfriend.” 

“That’s not fair. You said yourself you didn’t want Bobby with us full time, so—”

“And so long as you’re even around to be Bobby’s dad. This AIDS thing, Jack, it’s got me worried. Are you going to sicken from it and follow me?”

“Hell, no.”

“They’re calling it the gay man’s disease.”

“I’m fine, Lureen.” Jack’s eyes flicked over to Ennis. “And Ennis is fine too. We’re not doing anything to make us sick.” 

“You better keep it that way.” She broke away from him and walked back to where their food was attracting the attention of flies. “You boys come back here and finish eating.” 

Lureen didn’t bite off more than a mouthful or two, even though Jack tried to get her to eat more. She was quiet, her face sad, and Ennis couldn’t blame her. But him and Jack went through the rest of the food like they were two hungry teenage boys. Chicken wings didn’t taste bad, now that his whole life wasn’t gonna change. 

As Jack was finishing off the last piece, Lureen turned to him of a sudden and said, “Twenty-one years? You were dreaming of living with Ennis that whole time?”

Jack swallowed hard. “Honey, I—”

“Don’t you call me that. You bastard.”

“It wasn’t like that in the beginning. I wasn’t sure whether I was—”

“The hell you weren’t. Twenty-one years. More than our whole marriage.” 

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“Shut up, we’re sounding like a bad movie,” she sniffed. “If you do wrong by Bobby, I promise I’ll come back and haunt you. I’ll make your days miserable.” 

“I already told you that—”

“You two clean up this mess. I’m going to go see myself a tiger. I sure never had one in my bed.” 

She grabbed her purse and walked away, meaning to make an impression with her head held high, Ennis was sure, but it was spoiled when she stepped in a dip in the ground and almost turned her ankle. It didn’t stop her, though. She righted herself and kept going. 

“Damn,” Ennis said, watching her with some amazement. Lureen was giving him whiplash, trying to follow all the changes in her mood. “How’d you last seventeen years with her? You’re a stronger man than me.”

“Because I was wasting my time waiting for you,” Jack told him outright. “You okay with what we’re going to do with Bobby?”

“Yeah. It’s okay. Best of a bad situation.” 

Lureen was down on the beaten dirt path leading to the cages. “You two coming along?” she called up to them. “Jack?”

“I swear,” Jack said quietly, heart-felt. “First she hates me, now she wants my company. I am so fucking glad that you’re not a woman.”

“I thought you said she acted good through the divorce?”

“She did. I guess she had a lot bottled up, though.”

Ennis watched her turn away and walk to a pen where a lion was batting at a beach ball. He’d formed an opinion of Lureen over the years, but now he saw his imagining was something different from the truth. Lureen was sharp-edged, so real that even in her decline nobody could ignore her for a second. He could see how a man like Jack could find something to like there, but he could see even better how Lureen must have grated against Jack’s skin until he was scraped raw all over. 

Ennis’d had his own share of troubles with Alma, then with finding a way to live after the divorce, but it seemed to him that his understanding of Jack’s troubles living in Childress hadn’t been too deep. At least when him and Jack parted after seeing each other, he’d gone back to the quiet of his own place, to the comfort of work on the range where nobody asked anything of him except to do his job. Jack’d had to go back from Ennis to a home where he had obligations to fill, Lureen talking to him, pulling on him in such a way that must have been hard to take. His Jack who liked to talk, who didn’t mind putting himself forward for others to see, biting back what he wanted to say, never able to stand up to her cause that would have meant saying what the world wouldn’t let him say. 

Ennis shook his head. He wished he’d known better what that situation had been, then he could have maybe helped Jack more than he did. But looking back at the way he’d been then, would he really have done anything? Sudden Ennis had a picture in his mind, him and Jack in the evening dark up by the Gallatins, pricks of light in the sky, sitting and passing the bottle back and forth, not saying much of anything. Then getting up and moving into the tent, if they were lucky taking their clothes off if it was warm enough, most often not cause it wasn’t warm, trying to say with their hands and their mouths and their dicks what hadn’t been said and what Ennis didn’t even know to ask about. 

Back then, he’d been pretty well lost in his own misery and his own fears. He had lived off Jack. Jack had let him, with Jack giving and giving and Ennis taking and taking until there wasn’t hardly anything of Jack left. And Ennis had been unawares. He hadn’t even realized until this day how his man had been drained on both sides, Ennis and Lureen both. It could be… it could be that Jack had a point about all those things they hadn’t shared over the twenty years they were apart. They might be important. 

He looked over at Jack now, sitting next to him on the picnic bench, gathering up the napkins and forks, stuffing them into the bag they’d come in. Maybe for the first time ever, Ennis wished that they could touch in such circumstances, out in the open with people around. 

“You ready to go?” Jack asked him.

“Yep.” Ennis pushed himself up with hands flat on the table. “Let’s go find the lady.”

He stayed close to Jack while they wandered around the animal yard through the next half hour, listening while Lureen read the signs in front of each cage out loud, as if she was a teacher and they were kids in her class. He was sure that Jack’s reaction to Lureen’s news the day before had been real and that there was genuine feeling between the two of them. But seeing more of them now, it seemed to him they were more like old friends who’d known each other a long time instead of husband and wife. They never should have married. Ennis didn’t like Lureen reading to them, but Jack seemed resigned to it. 

Ennis had never been close to big cats like this before. He listened to Lureen with half an ear, filling up his eyes with the sight of their sleek coats and big teeth, their muscles gliding and stretching when they sometimes got up and walked around. Mostly they were lazy in the low evening sun, though, stretched out like all the cats he’d ever known, greedy for the heat. 

The two lions in front of him were named Esmeralda and Chantal. They’d been rescued from some idiot over by Corpus Christi who thought they were cute as cubs but locked them in his basement once they were half-grown. They looked to his experienced eye like they were well-fed and contented now. The lions paid them no mind, cause they’d been bothered by visitors thousands of times before. One of them was swatting at a rope hanging down from the wire mesh overhead, and the other one was belly up, scratching her back every now and then by squirming against the mat that spread out on that side of the cage.

None of the cats anywhere around the preserve were doing that pacing back and forth thing that’d so disturbed Junior and Jenny last time he’d taken them to a zoo. Maybe that was cause the cages at the zoo was bare and small, and here at Cimarron Creek the enclosures were fully three times bigger than what the girls had seen before. Still awful small, though, like him being stuck in the back room of their house for the rest of his life, maybe with Jack caught in the front room, within sight but not touching distance. Like the way it had been with them before, some. 

Jack and Lureen passed comments about the animals back and forth as they moved through the place, while Ennis stayed mainly quiet. He had to wonder how they each were ignoring the hard things he’d heard them say to one another. There had probably been even more hard things earlier in the day, when Jack had said they had a fight. Maybe that was cause each knew this was near the end, and they didn’t want to carry on with the bad feelings. Or maybe it was that this was the way it’d been with them for years, bad stuff flaring up and then being buried or smoothed over without it ever being dealt with. 

Jack was saying “I can’t believe anybody would be fool enough to try to raise a lion in their basement.”

They moved on to the next enclosure in the row, where a tiger and a lion were in together, unusual cause all the rest had been either two or three lions or two or three tigers. Ennis stuck his hands in his pockets and trailed behind Jack and his ex-wife. Shit. He didn’t want to repeat the mistakes playing out before his eyes. He’d made promises to himself about how he was gonna make it up to Jack, that he was gonna give for a change and not just take. He’d thought that living in the same house together was enough to do that, but it seemed to him now that maybe that wasn’t so. 

He listened while Lureen acted all surprised to read that there were interns who came to work with the animals for no pay every day, cause they believed it was the right thing to do. Ennis had wanted to do right by Jack since the day he’d bawled his eyes out at his kitchen table, when he’d realized what the long years of meeting in the mountains had done to his man. He didn’t want him and Jack to end up like they had with their wives.

“Oh, my God! Would you look at that thing? I thought all white tigers were beautiful!”

Lureen and Jack had moved ahead of him to the next cage. Lureen was standing with her hand up to her mouth as she looked at the big white and black cat licking its paw right in front of her. Ennis saw what she meant as he got closer. The tiger wasn’t right. It was messed up in its face, the eyes sorta bulging out, the nose pushed in, the mouth crooked. 

“White tigers from the black market trade in the United States,” Lureen read from the sign, “are inbred from a few who were brought to the country thirty years ago. As a consequence, the incidence of deformities from their offspring is high. Sundance came to us in 1980 when the police raided his owner’s house looking for drugs. In addition to facial irregularities, he has a malformed hip that prevents him from jumping and running as tigers normally do. Nevertheless, Sundance is very popular with the interns, who quickly come to appreciate his sweet disposition. They are in far more danger of being licked when they enter his cage than they are from him using his sharp claws or teeth. In 1982 the interns voted him Favorite Big Cat.”

Sundance had paws as big as dinner plates. When he got up to pace over to a silver bowl of water in the corner of the pen, there was a sort of hitch to his way of moving, almost a limp, that made Ennis wince cause it seemed painful. 

The cat lapped at the water and Ennis tried to figure if there was really some hurting going on. The preserve people wouldn’t likely allow that to happen, as set on caring for these animals as they seemed to be. So maybe that wasn’t hurting he was seeing, maybe just sadness. It was hard to tell past the way the tiger couldn’t have a regular expression like the others. Maybe this Sundance wasn’t suited for his life in the cage, no matter how big it was, or maybe it felt in some way how set off it was from the rest of the animals. 

“Have you noticed,” Lureen asked, “how a lot of these tigers came here because they were being used to cover up some place where men were dealing drugs? Or making the drugs?”

“It’s good cover,” Jack said. “I sure would think twice before walking into a house where I knew a tiger lived.” 

“Not this one,” Ennis said, speaking for the first time in ten minutes. “He’s gentle.”

“It’s a wonder he wasn’t put down when he was born,” Lureen said. “He’s pretty ugly.”

“Seems the interns don’t mind that,” Ennis put in. “And look how big he is. He was okay for guarding the house. I bet he scared away plenty no matter how he looks.” 

Lureen turned to him, amused. “Why, Ennis Del Mar, do I detect a soft spot in that heart of yours?”

He looked at her without hiding. “I don’t have a hard heart, if that’s what you’re saying. I don’t see how anybody could live with a man like Jack and stay that way.”

Lureen’s eyebrows rose high. “Are you saying my former husband is a…sweetie?”

Ennis scowled, but then he hurried on to what else he wanted to say. “Anyway, this tiger puts me in mind of a boy I know, retarded with his face not right, like this Sundance. His folks wouldn’t say he should have been put down.”

There was silence between them then, like all three of them were pausing and taking in a breath. Ennis felt a little light-headed. 

“You’re talking about Davey Buckminster, right?” Jack asked. Then he explained to Lureen, “Ennis is foreman at the Buckminster’s ranch.” 

“I learned today that the boy has lots of problems besides how he looks and how he thinks. His folks had to have his heart fixed, and even now he goes to lots of doctors. Seems it’s a big expense. But that boy, he’s a fine one.” 

“I’m sure he is,” Lureen said, about as warm as she’d been. “I didn’t mean to say…. You know I was talking about the tiger, not your friend.” 

“I reckon.” He’d already said too much, and he slouched off toward the next cage, not looking to see if he was being followed. This one had a railing all around it, giving more distance between the animal and the people who came to look at it. Ennis leaned forward and put his elbows on the rail. A normal looking tiger—not white, not blue-eyed, not with a body all messed up, instead a tiger that was natural—sat all by itself on its haunches and looked at him without blinking. Ennis stared back, wishing him and Jack could go home. Two nights now he’d not done right by the horses. 

“Big Sammy,” Lureen read the sign in front of the pen. She’d come up on Ennis’s left, Jack on the right, and if she didn’t stop with the reading out loud, Ennis thought, maybe he’d need to say that he wasn’t an idiot, he could read himself. “Brought to Cimarron Creek when—”

“Jack? Hey, Jack!” 

A man’s voice Ennis didn’t know turned his head around. A short, youngish fella with sandy hair was walking toward them with his hand held out, looking from Jack to Ennis to Lureen. Behind him was a skinny woman and a little girl, surely no older than three or four. 

“Andy. How are you doing?” Jack said friendly, but with a held-back note to his voice that wasn’t hard to hear. 

Ennis straightened up quick. Damn. This was Andy, Jack’s so-called boss at the feedlot. They shouldn’t have settled in Colfax County, it was too damn small. Every time he turned around there was somebody knowing them. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t around this afternoon to meet your ex-wife. Ma’am, Jack told me you’d be stopping by but I had a meeting in Raton I couldn’t get away from.” 

“Lureen, this is Andy O’Donnell from Tulip Feedlot. Andy, this is Lureen.” 

Andy stretched across Ennis from where he was standing in front of Jack to take her hand. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. Jack’s done a real fine job for us.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“I hope you’re enjoying your time in New Mexico? You live in Texas, right?”

“Sure. It’s a beautiful place you live in, nice and green. It’s parched in Childress right now, everything all dried up.”

“We’ve had a lot of rain lately. Let me introduce my wife. Carolyn, you’ve heard me talk about Jack Twist.”

“I sure have. Thanks for helping us out by picking Andy up when you went to Kansas City. Someday we’ll get a second vehicle, but until then, I need the car because of Heidi here.” 

“No trouble, Carolyn.”

It wasn’t like Ennis could make himself invisible. He was here, and that was that. Ennis exchanged a quick look with Jack, but there was nothing else to do. 

“Andy, this is Ennis Del Mar. Ennis, meet Andy O’Donnell, Carolyn, and their little girl Heidi.” 

“Ennis? I didn’t realize that….” Andy had his hand stuck out. He seemed the kind of man who shook hands at the drop of the hat, and so Ennis put his out too. The look Andy gave him, though, was like he was puzzled over something. Ennis hoped it was over what three grown people with no child in tow were doing at this animal place and not something else. They shook hands and then Ennis nodded to the wife and the little girl, touching his hat too. 

“Ma’am,” he said. 

Andy took his attention away from Ennis, which was fine with him. He wondered if Jack had told Andy about Lureen’s condition, but he doubted it. 

“So, Lureen, will you be staying long? There’s lots to see around here, and I’m sure Jack could spend some time showing you the sights, couldn’t you, Jack?”

“Sorry,” Lureen said with a smile. “I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I just came to visit Jack and Ennis for a couple days. I enjoyed shopping in Taos this morning, though.”

Ennis dropped his gaze to the ground and felt like he should have seen this coming. Lureen didn’t know any better. He supposed she thought they were shouting out their queerness to every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the valley. Shit.

“It’s a wonderful town, isn’t it?” Carolyn was saying. “I imagine you spent time at the square? There’s a great shop there called Fonda’s, tucked away around the corner. We take….”

The ladies chattered on, the little girl held her mom’s hand without squirming, and Ennis kept his head down. He didn’t want to get drawn into any conversation with this guy. It would be safest for Jack to handle it, and he sure hoped that this Andy hadn’t been listening too close to what Lureen had just said. Ennis stole a glance at him, and he seemed to be acting normally. He didn’t look like a man who’d just realized he would have to fire Jack cause he was queer. It should be okay.

It wasn’t more than three minutes later that Heidi let it be known she had no more interest in discussing the skirts for sale in town; she was there to see the animals. Good-byes were made, the O’Donnell family moved off to the pens in the back, and suddenly it seemed that at last Lureen’d had enough for the day. She looked at her watch. 

“It’s seven-thirty already. You two stay if you want to, but I’ve had it.” 

On the way back along the path they passed the gal who’d been in the office building when they came in. She looked at them brightly and said, “Oh, don’t leave now! I’m about to give the last tour of the habitats out back. We have four really big natural enclosures already open and we’re working on the fifth. Why don’t you join us?”

“I don’t think so,” Lureen said. “You go have yourself some fun.”

Jack touched his hat to her. “Thanks anyway.”

Those were the only words they spoke until they’d got through the museum and were up by the t-shirt display and the open door to the parking lot. A ceiling fan stirred up a breeze. Lureen stopped short of going outside again and stayed where the setting sun didn’t reach. 

“Jack, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow for breakfast?” 

“Sure, honey,” Jack said. “At the hotel lobby at eight-thirty, okay? That’ll give you plenty of time to get to your plane.”

“Good, because there’s a few more details we need to iron out. Don’t be late. I don’t have the minutes to spare.”

Jack nodded, as Ennis imagined he’d done for years and years with Lureen, the easiest way of living with her just to be swept along by her tide. “Will you be okay driving back to Taos? It’s been a long day for you.”

She waved a hand in the air. “I’ll be fine. Come here.” 

He looked away as Lureen and Jack hugged. He turned back too soon to see her press a lingering kiss on Jack’s cheek. She pulled back with tears welling up. “I don’t know why I give a damn about you, you bastard. We should be acting out the classic betrayed wife thing, made worse because you did it with men. Shouldn’t we?” 

“Lureen, you haven’t let me say I’m sorry.” Jack said it fast, like he was afraid Lureen would shush him. “I am sorry. I wish it hadn’t been the way it was between us. You’re a fine woman.” 

She shook her head, sad and slow. “None of it matters, does it? Not to me, anyway. Another day gone.” She tilted her head as she turned to Ennis. “I guess I’ll be saying good-bye here.” 

He would make sure she didn’t pull him into a hug he didn’t want. “It’s been good to meet you.” 

She took his hand and held onto it. “Me too. Though I’m leaving here not really knowing you at all, aren’t I? I’ve learned you aren’t an easy man to know.” 

His shoulders twitched. He didn’t like the notion that she’d been looking, though he’d known it was happening. 

“I still don’t understand why you two…. Jack never did get around to explaining that to me, and I guess that’s because he doesn’t want to. But I want you both to know anyway that I’m proud of Jack, because you’re the one who opened the door when I knocked. It shows at least that he left me for a reason. Tall, skinny, drink-of-water reason that doesn’t have curves and sure doesn’t talk much, but still a reason.” At last she let go of his hand, only to slap her palm right up against Jack’s chest. “I’m so mad at you overall that under other circumstances I’d shove you into one of those cages back there for the lions to eat you up. Ennis, you understand that?”

Looking over her shoulder at him, she seemed to expect an answer. “Sure. Felt like that a few times myself.”

“But you got over it. Me, I don’t have the time to get over anything, so it can’t be to begin with.”

Lureen surely was a strong-willed person, having control of herself like this at the end of her life, knowing what was facing her. Most folks would have done the opposite, he imagined, falling to pieces instead of gathering herself together like she had. Even with the tears she’d cried. She was a hard one to pin down. 

She fished around in her purse for her keys and said while doing that, “It seems ridiculous for the ex-wife to ask the homosexual lover of her former husband if he’s serious and will stay true, so I won’t ask that.”

Good thing, cause he didn’t want to answer. Him and Jack, they were doing all right, taking it week by week. Ennis had enough trouble keeping up with day by day that he’d not given any thought to the far future. Lureen had changed that, dumping responsibility for Bobby’s future on Jack’s shoulders, and making Ennis wonder what him and Jack would be like together years from now. 

Years from now. Bobby twenty-five, or them sixty. Junior married with grown children, Alma old and gray. Lureen a distant memory. 

He straightened and faced her, looked at her honest from under the brim of his hat. “You don’t have to worry about Bobby,” he said. 

She regarded him. “Even though…. Well, I know it’s not what you two want.” 

Jack moved a step closer to him. “But we’ll do it,” Ennis said. “He’ll be fine.” 

“Thank you,” she whispered. “You take care of Jack, you hear?” 

“I’ll do that.” 

“Okay,” she choked. Then she turned, stepped outside, and told them, “You stay there. Let me alone, I’m fine.” 

Him and Jack watched her go from the doorway. She pulled out of the lot fast, the tires of the Mustang spinning for a second, raising the dust thick and brown. 

Ennis ran his hand over his chin. When he’d driven up to the Cimarron Creek Animal Preserve, he’d thought that Lureen would put a heavy burden on them, one him and Jack had no choice but to accept. Now, with her driving away, he knew she’d given them time they really needed. The boy would be part of their lives, no doubt, but in a gentler way for a while, until next summer came. He could deal with that, and with the holiday visits in the meantime, just as long as it was him and Jack until then. 

He looked over at his man, who was still staring out at the long shadows caused by the setting sun. He had no idea what Jack’s state of mind was. 

But as usual, Jack was willing to share. He stirred as if waking from a dream. The focus came back into his eyes, and his shoes moved against the floor planks.

“I’m glad she’s gone,” he said quietly. “Damn, what a hell of a thing to say. I’m busted inside to think she’s dying, but I don’t know that I could’ve taken much more of her today. And she lives with the knowing every minute.” 

“That’s a hell of a woman you had there.” 

“Yeah. I know. Hell to live with too.” 

“I think I see how that could have been.” 

Behind them, he heard somebody coming in from the back way, so Ennis stepped out into the slanting sunlight, Jack behind him. He walked over toward where Jack’s truck was parked right next to where the rental car had been, his boots scuffing in the dirt. 

“What do you say we stop off at _Stubbie’s_ on the way home and grab a beer?”

Jack shook his head. “Nah, I’m beat. We’ve got beer in the fridge, don’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m for going home. You go to the bar if you want to. Maybe that guy’ll be there again. What was his name?”

“You’re the one who was drinking with him, not me.” 

“Anyway.” Jack had his keys out, put them in the lock, and left them hanging there as he turned toward Ennis. “Thanks. For putting up with all this shit. For being okay on having Bobby.”

“I’d rather have just you. I want to make sure you know that,” Ennis said roughly.

“I know. But you didn’t have to come over tonight, especially after I called the ranch. You must’ve hated that.”

“It just ain’t living smart, Jack.”

“So you say. Anyway…thanks.”

Ennis rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay. You know she ain’t right about all that stuff, though, don’t you?”

“About what stuff?”

“She always did have a tiger in bed with her, a blue-eyed tiger. I’ve got no complaints on that score.” 

Jack gave him a small smile that Ennis was glad to see. 

“And seeing all these lions puts me in mind that we really need to get a cat too. For the stable.”

The look in those eyes, soft, so clear that Jack didn’t really need to say, “You’re not fooling me, you know.” 

“I’m not?” Ennis cast a quick look around and saw nobody at all, just a couple trucks and the sky. “Good,” he said, meaning it. “I don’t want to fool you. You’re the only one I never did fool. Let’s keep it that way.” 

“Okay,” Jack whispered. “Let’s go home, Ennis.” 

“I’ll meet you there.” 

*****


	9. Hide and Seek

Early Friday afternoon at Tulip Feedlot and it was almost time for Jack to leave for Childress. He scanned the typed page in front of him and reached for the pen from his desk’s top drawer, watching his hand move like it belonged to somebody else. All week he’d been walking around pretending things were normal, but knowing he was going to take this trip was like a pebble in his shoe, pushing against the bruise it made so it got more and more painful. He dreaded going. He didn’t want to see evidence that another one of the weeks Lureen had been given had been used up, and he didn’t want to pretend everything was okay in front of Bobby. 

He’d forced himself to tell Andy what was going on with Lureen first thing Monday morning, before the man got started on how nice she was, a pretty woman, what God hath joined together let no man put asunder, and maybe things could be patched up…. Once Jack got the words out, Andy was speechless for a good ten seconds. Jack knew he was shocked, probably as much by the news that there was no way Jack was going to be able to get back with his ex-wife as by the up-close encounter with death that was coming soon. Then his boss said there was no problem with Jack taking off half a day Friday so he could go see his family. 

Jack scribbled on the yellow pad he kept on his desk, to make sure the pen was working. Andy had said it would be okay for him to take time off for the funeral too, whenever that came, although Jack hadn’t asked. He wasn’t thinking that far ahead.

All the Barton cattle that were going to be delivered in the first wave were already eating off the lot’s store of feed, and Jack had been able to cross that off his to-do list. They had to be the noisiest stock there was, because the lowing and mooing had shot off the scale; even in the middle of a phone conversation with Jerry Jefferson, through the office walls, Jack had been aware of the racket. That had been the first time he’d noticed it since he’d started work here, and he found he wanted to run out back and shout to every bothersome animal: _Shut up! Just shut up and quit…. Somebody make it stop…._

He’d really been on edge. He’d snapped at Ennis on Tuesday after dinner and they’d had a rip-snorting fight about Lureen paying for their admission to the preserve. Out of nowhere, Ennis was suddenly ready to knock his block off for making him less a man in Lureen’s eyes, implying he couldn’t take care of himself when anybody with any sense knew he could and he would. Ennis didn’t want to be treated like some weakling and, by the way, Jack owed him forty-eight dollars cause he’d paid for all their groceries. Maybe Jack’s goddamned fucking friends had thrown money at Jack, but Ennis would be damned if he did. Those friends that Lureen seemed to know something about when Ennis knew shit. All those men that Jack had been sneaking into his life when Ennis had been thinking it was a special thing the two of them had just between them. 

Yeah, Ennis had been on edge too. Even so, they’d managed some sort of connection later that night. 

_Jack rolled over and shoved both his hands under the pillow. “No man ever gave me money, Ennis. I wasn’t ever a kept man.”_

_“Oh, yeah? Maybe you kept them.”_

_“Nope,” he said, refusing to rise to that bait. “I already told you, none of the others was ever permanent or regular in any way.” He took a chance. “Except the one.”_

_“I thought you bought ass in Mexico.”_

_Oh. Mexico. Different from the men he’d found while traveling for L.D. or those who’d been passing through Childress. “You’re right, I did. Doing it with somebody I didn’t really know….” It meant his life didn’t get tangled up with another person, with their life and heartaches. Men driven by desperation to the back alleys, making themselves available for the tourists: to Jack they were just a willing mouth or a jerking dick or, only twice, an ass raised high. He could empty his balls with them the way his body hungered after, with a man, without touching the awful complications of his craving for Ennis._

_Randy—known, understood—had been a mistake._

_Or maybe not. A baby step at trying._

_The bed creaked when Ennis kicked at the sheet that trapped his feet. “Fuck.” He turned over and punched his pillow twice, then settled on his side._

_Outside the half moon wouldn’t appear for another couple of hours. The hard-working people of the Moreno Valley were mostly asleep. A few men were still in the bars. The horses turned outside were cropping the summer grass to the root. On County Road 19, Jack wanted to tell Ennis everything, to open up and make him really understand how bad it had been, because he felt in his heart that Ennis just didn’t see it. And he wanted Ennis to see it, to get it, to somehow take on some of the burden of Jack’s pain and the lingering anger that he guessed would always be in him. Because even though Ennis was here now, breathing not a couple of feet away, he’d done wrong by Jack._

_“You think Lureen knows about Mexico?”_

_Jack slid one hand free from the pillow and ran a thumb under his own eye. “I can’t tell. Even you don’t know about Mexico, not really. It never was…I didn’t know any name. See what I mean?”_

_“I guess.”_

_“I needed you but I wasn’t getting you, so I went after what I could get.”_

_“Sex.”_

_“Yeah. I needed it bad, Ennis, even more when I got to accepting exactly who I am. There were times I couldn’t stand it anymore, months still from seeing you. I went—”_

_“You’ve said enough.”_

_Jack sighed. More baby steps. “If you think so.”_

_Outside a breeze came up from across the mountains, swirled around Wheeler Peak, and swooped down the foothills and into the stand of trees that guarded their property. The needles of the pines held fast at the tops of the trees but rustled one against the other. The leaves of the oaks danced, made a song of green things growing, and a few drifted down to the ground, down to where they’d merge with the soil, turn into the good earth, and then work their way into everything there was._

_Jack listened to the wind._

_He heard Ennis swallow. “I suppose…I suppose some of those times you went looking….”_

_He swallowed again.“I suppose it wasn’t only your dick needing or you trying to get back at me, but getting away from your situation with Lureen that had something to do with it too. Right?”_

_So many things. “Yeah, that was part of it.”_

_“Before…you mostly made me think things were okay with you and her.”_

_“You didn’t want to hear different, you know that. Besides, I didn’t want to lay my burdens on you. We had enough to deal with of our own.” Him and Ennis, they’d got to be experts at not saying stuff. It was a habit hard to break._

_“I reckon. But…you weren’t happy with her ever, and I didn’t…. I don’t suppose I would have done anything different, but maybe if I’d known….”_

_Lightning shot up Jack’s spine, to think that what he hadn’t told could’ve been part of what held him and Ennis apart. He couldn’t stand to consider that. He reached across the sheet, felt the tips of his fingers against Ennis’s chest, and imagined his fingerpads sizzling with what had connected the two of them even through all the times they’d not said the words or, worse, said what wasn’t so._

_“You want to drive us both crazy, second-guessing what might’ve been if we’d done this or that? You asshole.”_

_Ennis’s hand came up and wrapped around his fingers._

_“You’re the asshole who’ll be leaving in a couple days.”_

_“Yeah. I don’t want to go.”_

_“I don’t want you to go either.”_

_“There’s not much choice.”_

_“I know. The traveling you’ve already done…. I’ll miss you, bud.”_

_Jack slid forward and pressed their lips together, kept it close-mouthed, felt the warmth of Ennis’s whole self breathing him in._

_“When you come back,” Ennis whispered after they parted, “I want to hear what happened. You tell me everything, you hear?”_

_They fell asleep like that, face to face, like they were talking to each other._

He finished proofreading the weekly report that Corliss demanded, signed it, and handed it back to Marge. “That’s everything. Guess I’ll head out now.” 

She looked distressed, like she had some responsibility for things, her face showing real concern that touched him. She wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she did her best and had a mother’s heart. “Drive safely. I hope…well, I hope things go as well as can be expected.” 

Everybody at the lot knew of Lureen’s circumstances now. Plenty of people had said, “Sorry, Jack,” as if the divorce had never been and he was worthy of sympathy because he really loved her. They made the skin between his shoulders prickle with guilt, but he nodded and took the well-meaning words anyway. His feelings for Lureen were damn complicated; there was no way he could explain them to folks around Tulip. 

As he got up and shoved his chair back up against the desk, Corliss’s office door was closed with no light showing from under it. Jack wasn’t even sure the big boss knew he was taking the time off, not that it mattered. Corliss had been scarce this week. When he’d been around, his scowl had kept the rest of them at a distance. That there were two unfamiliar, work-hardened men who were helping James Perez in the mill might have had something to do with it. Nobody had said a word about them that Jack had heard; they just were there Wednesday morning. They’d probably be gone by the time he was back on Monday. 

The early August sun showed no mercy, and he blinked as he stepped outside and let the office door slam behind him. Getting air conditioning in his Ford truck when it’d been twenty-five degrees and snowing in Amarillo had seemed an unnecessary luxury, but he’d gone for it and was glad now he had. It would be a boiling afternoon drive otherwise. He wasn’t sure what he’d find when he drove up Lureen and Bobby’s driveway, what used to be his driveway that he’d bought and paid for. He couldn’t imagine that Lureen meant it when she said Bobby would have no inkling of how things were. 

Jack squared his shoulders. How things were with either of Bobby’s parents. The news would be hard for the boy to handle, that was definite, and Jack had already had words with Lureen over whether he should be there when Bobby was told about Jack’s situation with Ennis. If he had his way, he’d leave on Sunday night with the boy knowing the truth all around, because he deserved it, but Jack already knew he wasn’t going to have his way. Lureen had played the high card on this one, insisting she was the boy’s mom and knew best, and couldn’t Jack this once go along with her way of seeing things? Because after all she was dying. 

He realized he’d been standing at the top of the doublewide’s wooden set of stairs, staring into space like some idiot. He resettled his hat and headed for where he’d parked his truck down by the mill. Four hundred miles faced him, and he wasn’t looking forward to the drive or what waited for him at the end of it. Maybe he’d see L.D. and Faye sometime during the weekend. For all he knew Lureen was planning a dinner party like they used to have, faking that everything was okay, with LaShawn and Randall Malone sitting directly across the table…. He had mixed feelings about Randy, wanted to see him, wanted not to see him. He would prefer above anything else, though, to spend the weekend in Eagle Nest with Ennis doing ordinary things. Ordinary was mighty attractive right now, but Jack doubted he’d see it anytime soon. 

The Jeep and the new red Toyota Tundra were on either side of his brown F-150. Leaning against the Toyota was one of the men who everybody was pretending didn’t exist. A man biting into an apple, short like most from south of the border were, stringy like he’d done plenty of hard work on not enough food most of the time, with a moustache twice the size of Jack’s. As he walked toward him, Jack wondered what had driven him to come here. Wondered if he missed a wife and children left behind, or if maybe they’d been taken from him somehow, or if he’d turned his back on them to start a new life. He had a scared look. His anxious eyes turned to Jack like he’d made a mistake standing out in the open under the clouds and sky, like he didn’t deserve to be seen. 

That just set on Jack the wrong way. He turned his steps away from the Ford, tipped his hat, and said, “Howdy.” 

The man nodded. “Hello,” he said, surprising Jack. 

“You speak English?”

“A leetle.”

Now that he was standing in front of the man, he wasn’t sure what he had to say. It’d been a while since what was going on with the mileage on the Jeep was uppermost on his mind. But there wasn’t anybody around listening to them talk, and Corliss was God knew where. He asked, “Do you know where you’ll be going next? Where you’ll get a job?”

“Cago.” 

Jack’s eyebrows lowered. “Chicago?” 

“Si. Mañana.” His hands gestured like he was pulling up the right English words from the ground. “Truck comes.” 

“Truck? What kind of truck?”

All he got for that was a shrug. 

“All the way to Chicago? That’s a long ride. But I guess you’ve already come a long ways from Nicaragua.” 

Seemed he was trying to understand what Jack had said. “No. Chihuahua.”

But that was in Mexico. “Not Nicaragua? Or Guatemala?”

He looked around, fear in every tense angle of his body, and shook his head silently.

That didn’t make sense to Jack. He wanted to ask if the other man working with James was from the same place, and what kind of jobs they had waiting for them to the north, but on second thought maybe it’d be better if Jack didn’t know. 

He looked down at the worn-out huaraches the man was wearing, no socks, dirt seeming to be what was keeping together the stiff rubber from old tires that the poorest guys from south of the border wore on their feet. They had to be fucking uncomfortable. Then Jack scanned back up to his face. The guy was measuring him, not sure if Jack was a friend or a gringo set to do him wrong, and then he turned away. He was probably worried what his life in a new country would be like, how he’d fit in when he was there with no standing, illegal no matter what the hell country he came from, not sure when somebody would turn him in. 

And of a sudden Jack thought of Ennis. _Do you think people know?_ It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t right to live like that, always hiding who you were. 

“Wait a minute.” 

The man who’d come from Chihuahua threw a glance over his shoulder and then came all the way around when he saw Jack had pulled out his wallet. 

“Here.” Jack picked up an unresisting hand and pressed a ten dollar bill in the palm, noting the surprise, the sudden calculation that sprung up in the brown eyes: Was there more? How much of a fool was this American?

Jack swiveled on his heel and yanked open the door to his truck. He felt dumb for his generosity. A lousy ten bucks wouldn’t change anything. When he looked out the window, already the man had disappeared, although there was an apple core on the ground. They tried to keep the feedlot neat with the EPA inspections; more than cow shit mattered. 

Somebody else would see it and pick it up. He was off watch now, and it wasn’t his responsibility. 

Still…. Mexico. 

He put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the feedlot road to start the long drive, another one in what felt like the hundreds of long drives that had shaped his whole life. At least he wasn’t going north to Wyoming, for a fishing trip he longed for and hated at the same time. At least he wasn’t going south of the border, to find somebody who would ease his body but never could manage to touch the jagged edges of his heart. Instead he was driving east, to death and telling lies to his son, Lureen pulling his puppet strings one last time. The only consolation for the whole weekend would come Sunday night, when he could aim his truck back home to Ennis. 

Jack turned the Ford onto Highway 64 and settled down to what he had to do. 

*****

When Ennis was eight years old, about a year before his daddy had taken him to see a body in a ditch, he’d got chicken pox real bad. He’d been covered with spots, in his hair, his ears, and up his little guy’s ass crack. He’d ached and itched. Nothing his mama had done for him seemed to help, not lotion she had left over from when K.E.’d got the pox, not cool baths, not rocking him as he fussed and cried. He had clear memories of that time and how he’d felt shamed to be such a baby, when he was coming up on the notion of the way a man should act. But he hadn’t been strong enough to be anything but a boy. 

“It’s because he takes after your ma in his coloring, that’s why this has him so bad,” he’d heard his mama tell his daddy one night as the rest of the family ate in the kitchen, and he huddled in miserable silence on the ratty striped couch. “And because of his freckles.”

Ennis sat on Samson and surveyed the herd of mares out to pasture. They had their attention fixed on filling their bellies, eating for two with the foals inside them. His gaze shifted to his right arm, resting across the saddle horn. Halfway up to his elbow were two dime-sized scars, where he’d scratched the pox marks until they’d come open bleeding. Mama had fussed and fumed, even smacked him a couple times as she worried they’d get infected. They had, sure enough, and long after the chicken pox had faded those two marks stayed open, troubling him, until finally they healed. He was left with the scars, reminding him of how weak he’d been back then. His strongest memory, though, was his mama holding him, his head up against her soft breast, singing softly to take his mind off the itching so maybe he could fall asleep. It hadn’t worked, since he’d been restless and whining all night, but still it was one of his best memories of her, though he had to imagine what her face must have looked like as she sang. 

The oldest mare in the herd, a fourteen-year-old chestnut who Rocky had said never failed to drop a good, healthy foal, raised her head and looked down the slope like she’d heard something. Her ears pricked forward, and Ennis pushed up in the stirrups to check. Floyd came into sight leading the last mare from the barn. Cheerful like always, he waved at Ennis though he was a fair distance away, opened up the gate, and let the horse into the field. With still no sign of Frank coming back to the ranch, Floyd was working mostly full time now. 

Ennis gathered up Samson’s reins and clucked to get him moving farther up the hill, automatically adjusting his weight over the gelding’s shoulders for balance. No hurry, an easy walk on this Friday mid-afternoon. Due east in Cimarron, Jack must have left from the feedlot already, two hours gone by now. He must have driven up to the interstate near Raton, then started across the long empty plain that was interrupted by the Capulin volcano jutting up out of nowhere, one of the strangest sights Ennis had ever seen, a volcano in New Mexico. Then Jack must have turned his truck toward Clayton, practically sitting on the Texas border, ready to head south through the grasslands to Dalhart. Ennis squinted at the angle of the sun. Yep, might be Jack was driving close to Clayton by now. Still a long way to go to Childress, though. 

It had only been three weeks since Jack had come home from Kansas City, and now here he was heading off again. Not that Jack wanted to go, but that didn’t change the fact that the house would echo without him around for the weekend. He’d wanted to ask Jack to call him on Saturday, so he could ease his mind that Jack was living smart in Childress. He’d not shown much talent in that area back when they were in Texas, and not much here in New Mexico either. It was possible the fool man would bring attention to himself without knowing what he was doing. But asking for a call was a pansy thing to do, and Ennis kept silent. Especially since he was likely to not be in the house much anyway. With him not being settled in his mind until Jack was back, Ennis planned to keep himself busy and work the horses hard. 

It’d been a hard week, both of them rocked by the news from Lureen though in different ways, with Ennis wanting to help Jack but not knowing a rat’s ass how to go about it. Instead they’d fought, and like a fool he’d thrown the other men Jack had been with in his face. Since he didn’t want to hear anything about them at all, why say the words, huh? 

All those long years of coming together and separating, then coming together and separating, and staying separated and staying separated and staying separated until at last they were together again for such a little time…. He should be used to Jack being away, shouldn’t he? What was a couple of days apart after all those months of not knowing anything about what Jack’s life was like, what was going on with him, and whether he was feeling fine or feeling trapped and miserable? Trapped and miserable had been the truth.

Things were different now. Ennis knew a lot about Jack he hadn’t known before. He’d stood in the doorway to the bathroom and watched Jack take a little silver scissors to clip his moustache. Then Jack had tried to cut a couple hairs in his ear and cussed, missing, until Ennis had come forward to do it for him. That was a damn stupid thing for him to feel good about, but even so….

Ennis knew that Jack liked old black and white movies, usually shown late at night, cause more than once he’d woke up alone in the dark and gone to find Jack stretched out on the back room couch with the TV flickering. Jack didn’t take kindly to being dragged to bed, but Ennis did it anyway each time. That’s where he belonged, and the man would complain about his bull-riding-done-in-knees-and-shoulders aching otherwise. That’s what they had a good mattress for. 

And now he knew a lot better how things really had been with Jack and Lureen. He knew more on how hard it’d been for Jack to stay in that marriage, complicated by how the two of them still had some ties of affection binding them. Ennis hadn’t known any of that before. Even though he always did seem to be thinking on Jack one way or the other, it wasn’t good if he wasn’t thinking on the way things really were. 

He imagined the long drive, with nobody there for Jack to talk to but himself. Maybe that wore on him. Some day they’d make a trip together again, like they’d done to Fort Worth that time, a weekend filled with some really good memories and some fucking bad ones. But most of the time sharing the truck with Jack, that had been a real fine thing. Something stirred in Ennis, wanting that concentrated time again, only him and Jack for hours…. Already the silence of no-Jack-for-the-weekend was wrapping around him, and he didn’t like it. 

Samson snorted as he rounded a boulder and the three-year-old pasture came into view. Ennis blinked to see they were there already, the rolling stretch of land dotted with the bays and chestnuts, roans and grays he was training. He hadn’t exactly been paying attention, his thoughts more than a hundred miles away, sitting on Jack Twist’s shoulder. 

Like usual Ennis rode along the fence line to check over all the horses before he cut out the first one from the herd to work with. He shook his head over the gray filly. It looked like she would cause him trouble one way or the other. She was standing under a stunted oak tree in the corner of the field, weight drawn up off one hind leg, swishing her tail all innocent. But bare-headed. Somehow she’d managed to get loose of her halter. 

He rode Samson into the field and eased among the young ones. Samson did that fine with hardly any direction from Ennis, as moving stock seemed to come naturally to him. The horses didn’t mind them any as he quartered the pasture looking down in the yellow-flower-speckled grass for the hint of leather. 

“What’d you do, eat it?” he said, when after ten minutes the dang thing was nowhere to be found. Only thing for it was to get another halter. 

He leaned down to open the gate and close it behind them, a trick easy to accomplish from the back of a steady horse like the big bay and next to impossible from a skittish one like Delilah. When he had Delilah schooled well enough to do the gate opening and closing without even thinking twice about it, he’d feel a lot better about how he’d sold her to the Buckminsters. 

He urged Samson into a canter to cover the ground over to the storage shed, for no other reason but to feel the horse’s muscles moving under him, the flow of those flashing legs across the ground. Jack had laughed more than once that Ennis had a pretty good way of fucking because of the muscles in his legs from riding days on end… and if he didn’t stop thinking about Jack Twist soon he was going to drive himself to distraction. Damn, the man wasn’t even out of the state yet. 

Ennis slid from the saddle on the off side, feeling contrary, to prove he could do it and Samson wouldn’t mind. The horse didn’t even turn around to give him the eye. 

“Darling,” Ennis told him, and he laid a hand under his mane. “You are a good horse.” 

He ducked through the doorway of the shed and kept the door wide open for the light to come in too. With ten feet by eight feet in front of him, there was enough space to walk a few steps to the back wall. He scanned the stuff that was on the shelves lining three walls, but didn’t see what he was looking for. Could be the halters had fallen down to the floor. He went down on his knees and rooted around, shifting boxes and containers. Maybe he’d have to go down to the main storage by the ranch house…. He shoved a thirty-pound bag of supplement to the side and stared down at what had been under it. What the hell? A gray metal box, bigger than the old tackle box he’d never used for real, looked like…. 

He flipped the latch in front and pushed the lid up. A small collection of screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers, screws, nails, and drill bits rested in compartments, some of them overflowing from one section to another. Nothing was new, but the tools were in good shape. He picked up a pair of pliers and squeezed them open and shut. He could feel the grooves that had been worn in the handles, how they fit his hand. 

Maybe Rocky had decided to put tools in each of the sheds around the ranch? Could be. Maybe Ennis hadn’t noticed before. 

Frowning, Ennis closed the box, stood up, and lifted it to a low shelf. It wasn’t like Rocky to be so careless as to put tools under feed…. He looked around and noticed that another bag in the corner had a sort of hump to it. He moved it and then bent down to pick up what was under it. A cardboard box, less than a foot square, that said _Black and Decker Electric Drill_ on it. Sure enough, inside was the tool that went with the drill bits he’d just seen. 

Ennis contemplated the electric drill in his hands. What good would it do up here? If it’d been a cordless drill, maybe, but even that wouldn’t do much for the horses. This was Tag’s work, he was sure. What kind of man did he think Ennis was, that he’d never stir himself to go into the shed? Did he think Ennis was too shiftless to pay attention to the horses’ needs? Or did Tag think he wouldn’t care what he found there? He cared, all right, but what to do beyond that….

“Damn the boy,” he said under his breath. He was working hard to keep a low profile with the family, and he had no history of sticking his nose in other people’s business. But Tag was a boy, almost a man, who reminded him of the way Bobby must be. Bobby, who Jack was driving to see right now, and who Ennis felt guilty about not wanting any part of if he could avoid it. Who Jack didn’t really want, either. Bobby’s situation came too close to the one Ennis had lived through himself when he was a boy, set loose way before he was ready, with nobody wanting him, not aunts, not uncles, in the end not Mandy nor K.E. He knew what it was to feel outcast and alone, and the big mistakes that could drive a young man to. It’d sent him into Alma’s arms. 

He couldn’t do shit-all about Bobby right now. He didn’t want to do anything until they had to cause he was selfish for him and Jack together, but then there was Tag. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed the boy was on the edge of something that could change his whole life. Some big mistakes were about to be made, it seemed to him, if they weren’t already done. 

He stooped back down and put the box where it’d been, and then he covered it up with the feed bag. He took the tools and put them back where he’d found them too. Finally he did locate the halter he needed, went back into the sun, and closed the door. There was a lock that would close things up, but Rocky had the key. If Ennis asked him for it now, there’d be questions he didn’t want to answer.

A couple hours later he made his way down the mountain to the main stable, took the tack off Samson and put it up on the pegs, and tethered the horse by the open double doors where he could rub him down. Floyd was making himself useful, sweeping the stable’s main aisle with a bristle broom and humming to himself. Ennis concentrated on the curry brush in his hand and the sound of the horse’s breathing until Rocky came in sight, a clipboard tucked under his arm. Ennis asked where the boys were, casual as he could. Rocky said both of them had gone off to the Trinidad Jazz Festival. 

“That’s quite a drive just for some music,” Floyd put in from where he was leaning on his broom. That man couldn’t stay away from a conversation.

“It’s the only thing the two of them have wanted to do together all summer. There was no way I was going to say they couldn’t go.” Rocky drew an amused-sounding breath and penciled something on the clipboard. “Of course, I’m hoping they don’t murder each other in the process. You know brothers at that age.” 

“Not me, I only have my sister.”

“That’s right, I forgot about that. How about you, Ennis?” Rocky asked easily. He talked that way to Ennis now. “Did you have any brothers you could get into trouble with?”

“Not much trouble.” His shoulder raised protection against more words, and he turned away from the other two to take Samson’s lead rein and turn him into the box stall. Before nightfall somebody from the family would let him out into one of the paddocks, but in the meantime Ennis had plenty of end-of-the-week chores to lose himself in. He always tried to arrange it so everything would run well for the Buckminsters over the weekend. He felt relieved that Tag was in Colorado with Matt. That meant he wouldn’t be pushed into deciding what to do about the boy. 

On Friday night he stayed up watching Johnny Carson and then some old-fashioned movie with Rock Hudson and Doris Day, one of the stupidest things he’d ever seen. But there wasn’t anything on the other channels, and he was too lazy to get up from his chair and do something else, including getting himself another beer. He slouched down low, with his feet up on the kitchen chair he’d put back after Lureen had left, and stuck his hand down the front of his jeans about the time Doris slapped Rock hard across the face. He played with himself a little, though his dick was reluctant to get stiff against his palm. He remembered the last time he’d done it alone. The phone call from Kansas City with Jack’s voice egging him on. But his heart wasn’t in it tonight. 

The next day, after plenty of hours working with Fancy and Dawn—two horses with names he never would have picked himself—the horses had had enough and he had too. Ennis walked back toward the house at dinnertime and thought of _Stubbie’s_ on this Saturday night, the smell of smoke and beer and the sound of guys talking, sitting at the bar with his back turned to whoever was playing pool. He thought of grocery shopping, the bright lights and Muzak blasting over his head, maybe a kid crying cause he wanted a candy bar and mom said no. He thought of mopping the kitchen floor that surely needed it, for Lureen had looked at it kind of pointed. 

But what he did was open a can of Spam and slice it to put between two pieces of Wonder bread. Jack hated the stuff, but Ennis figured Spam was okay, and he could finish it the next day. Then he’d make something good for dinner on Monday night when Jack was back, maybe steaks and fried potatoes with onions. 

He sat at the kitchen table with a can of beer, his sandwich, and an open bag of Ruffles potato chips. The sound of the chips crunching in his mouth was loud. 

A couple years after him and Jack had started meeting again, they’d talked about dogs. Jack’d had a big one then, some German shepherd cross, but it’d got hit by a car not too long after that. He didn’t know the kind of dog Jack’d had next, the one he regretted leaving after the divorce. If he wanted to, he could go out to Floyd’s place tonight, see what animals he had, and surprise Jack with one when he got home. Thinking on it made him queasy, since Jack had been out to Huggins Road with the hawk already. Ennis’s friend, Jack, and he just knew Jack had said that to Floyd. There wasn’t any use hoping otherwise. 

Ennis stretched out one of his legs, worn-out from gripping Fancy’s sides so she wouldn’t throw him. Ennis had never wanted a dog when he’d been living alone in Wyoming, hadn’t even given the possibility a thought. Been too damn mired in his own gloom. He’d kept his head down and never did look up to see the way dogs had of wagging their tails and making a person feel better about themselves. Jack could maybe use that right now. 

With his one dish from dinner rinsed off, the house had nothing to keep him there. Well before the sun set he drove out to Floyd’s place. The old man was sitting on a folding lawn chair in front of a nice-looking house set back from the road maybe a hundred feet. As he got out of the truck he noted it was smallish but freshly painted, with four big pots of geraniums before the front door and a yellow trotting-horse weathervane on the roof, that was sagging here and there. Floyd jumped up like Ennis was his favorite person, the one he’d been waiting on.

“You’ll want to see the hawk that your friend brought me,” he said. Ennis tensed, but it was just Floyd, after all, and he showed no signs of being anything but his usual self. Floyd led him toward a big wire cage set up against the outside of what looked like a garage. But, Ennis was told, it was where he did his deer processing in the fall. “I like to keep that out of the house,” he explained. “But look, here’s the hawk. He’s not doing too badly.” 

Ennis had to admit, in daylight the bird looked worth saving, not a lump in Jack’s blanket any more. After a week and a half in Floyd’s care, it was a fine-looking animal that regarded them from the far corner of the cage. It held its head high and spread its red tail. Because of the fierce look in its eyes—like they were its next meal—Ennis had no idea how Floyd handled it. Not much, he guessed.

“The main thing is keeping it from flexing that wing. I think the leg is all right, not broken as far as I can tell. But I’m not sure if it will ever fly again. We’ll have to wait and see on that. It might take quite a while for him to heal.”

Ennis felt some sense of loss. 

“I haven’t had one of these brought to me before, so I went into town to the library last weekend and did some research. Somewhere around here there’s a female hawk who is looking for this fellow. These birds are monogamous.”

Ennis frowned at him, not knowing what that word meant. Floyd added, “They stick to just one mate at a time. Most of the experts think they mate for life too. I think that’s amazing.” 

He looked around at the scattering of trees on the property. “You figure she’ll wait for him?” 

Floyd shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. Their young should be out of the nest by now, and that might have something to do with it. Your guess is as good as mine. It’s a mistake to think that animals act in ways we humans want them to. Here, give me a hand with this. I like to cover him up at night.”

He helped Floyd flip a canvas tarp over most of the cage, weighing what he was gonna say. 

“My friend give you some money to help care for it?”

Floyd led the way back to his chair, where it seemed he kept watch over his little corner of the valley. “Jack did, and that’s more than most folks do. Half the time I wake up and discover a stray dropped off in my yard, and I never know where it’s come from. Once or twice it’s even been a horse. Speaking of horses, have you heard about that ranch liquidation on Monday night? It’s down south, near where we took the mares. I hear you’re always looking for horses.”

“Nope, I haven’t heard about that.” 

“Let me get you the flyer I picked up about it, it’s in the house. How about if you sit with me a while, join me in a drink? I don’t keep alcohol, but I’ve got soft drinks and iced tea.”

Another folding chair came out onto the front lawn and Ennis took a can of Dr Pepper with the sound that for him had always passed for _thanks._ The cicadas was buzzing in the trees all around, and the air was sort of soft, not too hot or cool, but easy on the face. Floyd told him that the dog he’d mentioned was gone already, taken on by some folks who lived on the other side of Taos, so there would be no surprise for Jack. Still, Ennis stayed as the sun played on the bellies of the few clouds, while the sky streaked orange and purple, and then as all the light faded and the stars came out. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” 

“Sure is,” Ennis said, as quiet as if he was in a church. 

It was good that there were times when Floyd knew when to keep his words to himself. 

After a while, though, they did talk some. An outside light made a little pool of yellow on them, softer than a spotlight, harder than the brightness of day. Floyd started with no prompting from him, no surprise. He talked about what life on the road as a salesman had been like, a hard way to earn a living, and how much better he liked it now doing all different kinds of jobs through the valley. How he liked knowing lots of people, always somebody to talk to. 

“I bet you know the names of the library folks in Taos,” Ennis found himself saying, meaning to bring on a smile. 

“Julie and her cousin Eric,” Floyd said right away. “Two fine people. You ask them a question and they’ll find the answer for you.” The old Indian reached up to swipe the bandana off his head, showing off a crewcut any Marine drill sergeant would be proud of. “Well, most answers. Some things they don’t know. All the important things that people should be asking but mostly don’t.”

Floyd was surely a different kind of man. Ennis wiped the sweat off the can with his thumb, then grunted, which meant he was interested. 

Floyd stared out into the darkness. “Like why human beings spend so much of their time making war against each other. Why we hate each other so much, not just people far away but close. Why we’re afraid of each other, which is about the same thing in my mind, because fear leads to hatred.” 

Ennis thought on this in silence. He felt uneasiness settle on the back of his neck, almost like being embarrassed, like cutting a fart in public where folks could hear. But there wasn’t anybody here but him and Floyd, and it was okay to talk about the things that had occasionally crossed his mind too. Most of the time he took it for something natural, that there were some folks other people hated, like queers in general, which he knew meant him too, but as to why…. Yeah. Why was that the case?

Floyd aimed a smile Ennis’s way, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. “Or why peanut butter sticks to the top of a person’s mouth.” 

“That ain’t quite the same kind of question,” Ennis pointed out, cause that was something he could safely say something about. “I bet your library friends could find the answer to that one.” He put the Dr Pepper to his lips, drained it, and then set it back down on the grass. 

“Okay, then, if you think it’s so easy, you come up with one of those unanswerable questions.” 

That was something Jack might be able to do, not him. “I don’t know.”

Floyd pointed a thick finger in his direction. “Ennis Del Mar, you know a lot more than you let on. Come on, humor an old man.”

“You ain’t so old.” 

“I’m already there, son. Old enough to be your father at seventy-one, that’s for sure. So, what’s a question that can’t be answered?”

Ennis threw a fishing line into his mind and hooked onto something right away. _Why the hell am I queer? Why’s Jack queer? And how come for all those years this thing him and me have for each other made us act so different, me curling in, blocking out everything, when Jack reached out scatter-brained, searching for what he should have known damn well he couldn’t get with anybody else._ But he sure didn’t want to pull any of those questions to the surface, even though they were the unanswerable questions Floyd was asking for. 

Instead he came up with, “Why people cry when they’re sad. Or laugh when they’re happy. Or why some folks are always danged cheerful. Especially considering….” 

“…considering my wife ran off with a guy from Phoenix, my only son died, and I’m an alcoholic?”

Ennis moved in the little chair, set on uneven ground and wobbly. “Didn’t mean to pry. None of my business.” 

“No, it’s all right, I don’t mind.” Floyd hitched forward in the chair, his hands clasped between his knees. “This is the way I see it. It’s a choice. We only have this one life. I think people don’t focus on that enough. This is it. Every single one of us is going to die too soon. Why be miserable while we’re waiting for that to happen?” 

“Ain’t always a choice. Sometimes it’s just the way things are. You weren’t all smiley when…. Sorry.”

“No, I get your point. You’re right, sometimes life gives us bad hands. Those four years I lost after Wiley died…. There isn’t much good that can be said about them. Except for the years that came after.”

Ennis had never had a conversation like this in his life, not even with Jack. Most folks didn’t think a high school dropout like him could have thoughts on such subjects, probably. But over the past months, he’d considered that the good that was happening with him and Jack could never have come to be without that one day at Pine Creek that about destroyed him. November 7, 1983, about twelve-thirty, when it felt like he’d dropped head-first into the deepest hole with no hope at the bottom. 

“I know….” He reached to pull at his earlobe. “I know somebody right in the middle of the worst thing. She’s dying. Got cancer, with not much time left.”

“Ah,” Floyd said. “Anybody I know?”

“I doubt it.” Already he regretted talking, but he couldn’t call back the words. “She’s, uh, my friend’s ex-wife.”

“Which friend?” 

He wasn’t accustomed to thinking in terms of more than one. One friend. He cleared his throat and let out the name that somehow wanted to be said. “Jack. Jack’s ex-wife.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“Yeah. It’s bad news all around.” 

“Does she live near here?”

Ennis shook his head. “Back in Texas.” 

“I see. I guess your friend… how is Jack taking it?”

“What you’d expect. Kind of hard.” 

“Tough times.” 

“Yeah. Nothing I can do about it, though.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. My father always told me that having friends was better than owning gold.” He gave a sigh. “I used to tell Wiley that, passing it on, and I think he listened. He was a shy kid, can you believe that, with me for a father? But by the time he went over to ‘Nam, he was better.” 

Ennis listened for a while longer about Floyd and his son, listened to the sound of traffic now and then out on the road, listened as the whole valley settled down, even the bugs in the trees finally seeming to give way to quiet. Floyd got him another can of soda pop without asking, and Ennis took it with a nod. Talking with Floyd so freely about Jack…. He hadn’t known he wanted to do that. He popped the top and lifted the can to take a swallow, thinking he must have said Jack’s name a million times over the years. Well, maybe not. They hadn’t spent enough time together for him to do so, and he sure as hell hadn’t been saying _Jack_ out loud to other folks when he lived in Wyoming. Except those times in the night when his hand was on his dick, pulling…. He’d called out Jack’s name then. He shifted again in the chair, trying to push away the thought, and shamed he had it while sitting with the old Indian. There was no sense wanting when his man wasn’t home to satisfy the want.

“See the lizard?” Floyd pointed. 

Over on the edge of the light, where it petered out into shadow, a flash of motion scurried along the ground. Ennis watched the thing rooting around the Johnson grass and the weeds that had sprung up there. 

“Fat and sassy,” Floyd said. “Everything’s growing well this summer with all the rain we’ve been having. It’s been a good year in the valley.”

After a good while sitting under the stars, Ennis figured he’d better head home. It wasn’t but seven, maybe eight minutes from Floyd’s house back to County Road 19. Ennis drove up into the yard about eleven o’clock. He wandered down to the field and leaned on a fencepost, peering into the dark to try to see the horses, but he couldn’t make out even their shadowy shapes. They must be down at the far end, maybe standing close, front to back the way horses did, their tails flipping back and forth in each other’s faces. He couldn’t see the vulture tree, either, but he knew it was there, with the birds together the way they roosted. His shooting that night BJ had come over hadn’t stopped them from living the dark hours there, regardless of what Jack had said. 

Inside the house, he prowled around, tired but not feeling like sleep, and not knowing what to do with himself. His feet took him to the windows in the back room, where he looked out, and then he made sure the latches were on secure. Those tools and the drill in the high country shed had come from somewhere, and he didn’t want his and Jack’s house to be easy pickings for thieves. That thought pushed him to all the other windows, including the one in the second bedroom that they never went in, off to the side of the laundry room, the room they needed to fix up so Bobby could stay there. There were a couple boxes stacked one on top of the other, but that was it. The window was secure, unless somebody had a mind to smash it in. But he’d hear that if it happened tonight, without Jack to be distracting him with his jabbering, or his late night movies, or his kisses. 

Ennis opened the refrigerator door and stood looking at what was inside. He was feeling a hunger, all right, but a hard-boiled egg or a hunk of cheese wasn’t really what he wanted. It used to be he knew how to handle this kind of wanting. Sometimes he would go for half a year without a body close to his, another man touching him or him touching another man…Jack to be specific. Jack, the man who knew his secret, who kept it, who for a couple weeks each year had turned something ugly that Ennis refused to understand about himself into something so fucking good.

The cool air touching his face disappeared as he closed the fridge door. He was turning into a woman, not able to bear being alone at night, and hanging on thoughts of Jack like a weak sister. What he needed was to stand up like a man. Or maybe go lay down like a man, on the bed, but not to sleep. Shit, why not? Jack might be doing the same thing in Childress. 

Ennis made up his mind, walked with quick steps into their bedroom, and stooped to pull open the bottom drawer of Jack’s side of the dresser. It was just about the sex, right? It was the sex that had driven Jack to Mexico and what they’d both felt looking at the queer man’s porn together. He took up _Stallion_ in one hand and was already reaching for the zipper to his jeans with the other. 

He settled into the bed with the nightstand light on, the only light on in the house where he was the only living thing, a naked man with a hard-on, turning pages, not letting himself think that a year before he would have cut off his right hand before even picking up a magazine with pictures of naked men in it. All he let himself know was the ache in his balls that needed to be set free. He looked past the kid in the convertible to the dark-haired man with the dick that curved to the side like Jack’s did. He stared at that dick, noting how it was the same, how it was different from the one he was used to. He pushed back his foreskin and breathed in deeply at the feeling, as his fingers curled around where he was already hard. 

Last night he hadn’t been able to get up any interest, but this night he felt like gulping it down, the pictures in front of him, the thoughts of Jack turning him on, turning the page to those photos that’d been taken by real people and sent in to be printed for anybody to see. Ennis imagined taking a picture of Jack on his hands and knees with his fine dick stretched out under him, knees spread wide cause he was getting ready to take Ennis right up the chute, maybe his hole already glistening with the KY…. 

Closed his eyes, let the magazine drop flat onto his chest, and concentrated on the feeling. Damn good. Doing it exactly the way he liked it, his fingers moving fast, flicking his thumb over where he was flared out strong. His chest heaved. The sound of his own breathing sent a thrill to his dick.

One-handed, he picked up _Stallion_ again and quickly turned to the last picture spread, that he’d seen only once before. Jack had been holding the magazine, and Ennis had barely had time to take in the three men together before him and Jack were all over each other, and that was that. There they were before his eyes, all three of them. His hand on his dick slowed even though he knew another few strokes would set him off. Then he let go of his dick altogether and instead touched his fingers to the pictures on the page.

Not something he truly cared for or wanted, one man in his life being more than enough for him to handle. He couldn’t imagine it, not really.

“Shit,” he breathed. One man, awful young, narrow-waisted, kneeling on the edge of a bed with his ass raised high, leaning down with his open mouth about ready to take in the dick of another guy spread out on his back. The third, thick-shouldered, older, standing right up next to the bed and behind the cocksucker, holding himself with the broad head of his dick about an inch from the guy’s ass. Nobody in truth touching anybody else, but Ennis could supply the rest. 

Hand back to where it had to go, one stroke, two, he arched up pretending he was sending his come into Jack’s mouth. Or into his ass or into his hand, cause all ways Jack took him in were good. 

He didn’t even have the strength afterward to wipe his fingers on the sheet, shut off the light, or put the magazine to the side. It fell back to his chest like before, his eyes closed, and Ennis slept. 

*****

Late Sunday afternoon found Ennis washing up in the kitchen, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, feeling tired and grumpy. Fancy, O’Hara’s palomino, had thrown him twice, and his wrist ached from where it’d hit the ground. The horse was bad-natured and determined to have her way. Ennis could relate to that, but a bruise was coming up on him already. 

He looked out the window like something was gonna change from the minutes before when he’d been outside, like Jack would come roaring up in his F-150 in time to have dinner with him. But Jack was on the road right now and wouldn’t be back for hours, maybe not until nine or so. Ennis could make do with the Spam, read _U.S. News and World Report,_ and watch TV, moping around for the first sounds of a truck pulling into their drive, or he could take his sorry ass someplace else. 

So he fired up the Ram and drove down to Allsup’s, where he bought a prepackaged turkey, cheese, and lettuce sandwich, two chocolate cupcakes, and orange juice. Then he drove around the lake and kept going to the southwest. It was only a couple miles until he saw the sign that said _Vietnam Veterans Memorial._ He must have passed it plenty of times during the last months in the valley, but it’d only been since he’d driven by with Floyd that he had some curiosity about the place. 

A curving road took him up a hill and then to a parking lot that held four or five cars and trucks. He could see the top of some white building higher up, but it was mostly hidden by another rise in the land and some small trees. As he pulled on the emergency brake, a middle-aged couple, a little older than him, came walking down the path toward their car. The woman was crying, and the man with his arm around her shoulders didn’t look much better. They didn’t notice him. 

Once they drove off, he sat there for a bit, wondering if he should go find out what the fuss was all about. All day long he’d felt like somebody was scratching against a blackboard in the back of his mind, and he needed the distracting. He left the food to eat later, hauled himself out of the cab, and set his feet on the path up to the memorial. 

A sign pointed the way to the _Chapel_. But still he wasn’t prepared when he got up high enough to see the smallish white building on the brow of the hill. At first glance, it didn’t even seem like a building, more like a statue or something, with curving walls that swirled around each other, starting with a twist coming out of the ground that rounded up and up until they joined in a point that thrust straight up to the sky. It was one of the stranger buildings he’d ever seen, but it did have some air about it that said “church.” That put him off. He’d had it with churches and church-going people. He knew the sermon about going to hell for his misdeeds by heart and didn’t need to hear it again. 

Ennis almost turned back, cause there wasn’t anything else up here to see except the view of green grass surrounding him, as if the white building was a ship on a sea or maybe it was an island he was standing on. But he was here, so he may as well at least look. 

Inside there was only one other person, down the steps toward the front, a gray-haired man with his head bowed. The room was dim-lit, smaller than he’d expected, slanting down to where normally there’d be a place for the preacher to stand. But nothing was there, really, only space that narrowed to a tall, thin window, showing a sliver of the east side of the valley. Ennis could hear his own breathing. It was quiet like a morgue, which was right, since there were thirteen pictures of men killed in Vietnam on the back wall. Ennis took his hat off and walked along, looking in their faces. Twelve of them were awfully young, as young as Wiley Aguilar had been when he’d been taken from his dad. As young as Jack had been when he’d been hauled before the draft board and let go cause of the way he’d busted up his knees and shoulders in the bull riding. Though…it had occurred to Ennis once or twice that maybe those men had caught on that Jack was queer, and that’s how he got out of serving. 

He stood at the top of the steps that led down to the bank of seats that swept across the room, knowing he was expected to go down and sit for a while. There were cushions along the rows, and the whole quiet air of the place invited praying and thinking, like the man in front was doing. But he didn’t have prayers to offer. Folding his hands together and mouthing words hadn’t ever meant anything to him when he was a kid, and not that day he’d married Alma in the church either. Damn, he’d just been a kid himself, not understanding anything. Except that he’d known deep in his heart that there was something almighty wrong with what he was doing with Alma, because of what he’d done with Jack. 

A man like him, living the life with Jack now, where did prayers fit in with that? The God he’d been taught about wasn’t gonna listen to him. He didn’t know why the hell he was there, cause the scratching in his mind with Jack gone wasn’t gonna be stilled by anything he could do.

So Ennis left, putting his hat back on with a sigh that was part relief, part regret that he hadn’t found a place where he could sit comfortably, and he walked back to his truck, thinking of the sandwich there. 

When he got back to the parking lot, a black Silverado was sitting with its driver door wide open and its tailgate down. Tag Buckminster was shoving some boxes from the bed into the hands of another youngster about his age, who was dumping everything as fast as he could into another truck, a half-ton blue Toyota. 

Ennis stopped dead in his tracks next to a couple bushes, where it wasn’t likely he could be seen. The boys weren’t making any attempt to hide, even though they should have. Nothing innocent was going on. There was no mistaking the toolkit he’d seen on Friday, or the Black and Decker drill box. Innocent to anybody else, maybe, but to him they told a tale he didn’t want to hear. 

Tag jumped down from the truckbed and rubbed his hands together with satisfaction at the job being done. Him and the other boy said a few words to each other, and then the boy got into the Toyota and drove off. Tag fished a pack of cigarettes from the Chevy’s glove box. He lit up and leaned against the side of his dad’s pick-up.

Fuck. Ennis’s stomach clenched into a rock. He hadn’t made up his mind over what he was gonna do about the tools in the far pasture shed, but if a person believed in signs, it seemed he’d been shown one that decided for him. He had no choice now, cause it seemed there wasn’t any question that those big mistakes he’d thought Tag might be making were happening. The boy was using the land for purposes no way his dad would think was okay. The cops either. 

“Jesusfuckingchrist,” he muttered, cause there were a thousand things he’d rather do instead of what looked like needed to be done. 

Ennis forced his feet to move with some sign of confidence as he stepped away from the bushes and onto the paved lot, though he felt like a man with no experience asked to act as foreman his first day on the job. Tag saw him, and the expression on his face changed in a second. He straightened up real quick, tossing the smoke away the length of the truck.

“Hey, Ennis,” the boy called out to him. There wasn’t a quaver to his voice.

“Hey yourself,” Ennis said as he came close. “Wasn’t looking to see you here.”

“I was meeting a friend of mine.”

Ennis squinted at him, with the sun shining in his face from the western sky. “I saw him.” 

“We were just—”

He held up a hand to stop whatever lie the boy was gonna give. “I don’t need to hear explanations. You in a rush to be off someplace?”

“No, why?”

“I was wondering if you’d walk with me up there. You ever been up to that church-thing they got at the top of the hill?”

“Sure. Mom and dad took us here a couple of times when we were kids.” 

“There’s a bench halfway up that looks good for sitting and eating. Why don’t you come along with me while I do that.” 

It would have been easy for Tag to say “no” and drive away. But he didn’t, maybe cause he wasn’t sure what Ennis had seen or not seen or what conclusions he’d come to. He nodded and followed while Ennis got his sack of food, and then they went up the path to where a brand-new molded-plastic park bench gave a good view down to highway 64, pretty close, and the lake in the distance. The whole time they were walking, Ennis was going over in his mind what he might say and how he was gonna say it. 

He settled on the bench with Tag next to him. In silence Ennis took the plastic off the sandwich. He offered half to the boy. “It’s turkey.” 

“No, thanks. Mom’s got dinner for us at seven. We usually eat late on Sundays.”

“Yeah? What’s she making?”

“Some chicken thing with rice. She pours French onion soup over it. It’s pretty good.” 

“Is it easy to make?”

“Sure, everything she makes is easy. She says she’s got better things to do than spend time in the kitchen.” 

Ennis took a bite of his sandwich, chewed, and then swallowed. “Ranch work is hard, and your brother takes her time too.”

“It’s the writing, mainly. Every spare minute she gets, she runs to the typewriter upstairs.”

“I guess she’s plenty busy.”

“Sometimes it feels like she’s living somewhere else and not in our house anymore. She’s got Kirk and Spock on the brain.” Tag scuffed his feet in the dirt, looking down as if he felt sorry for himself.

“She’s entitled. What do you have on the brain?” 

Tag shrugged. “Nothing much.” 

“I thought you were looking to your last year in high school. Playing on that football team.” 

“Yeah, I am.” 

“And then after that, from what I hear, your folks are willing to pay to get you in a college somewhere.” 

“They’d better. Nothing ever happens in the valley. It’s a dead-end place to live. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“You’re lucky you have the chance. Where are you thinking of going?”

“I don’t know. University of New Mexico’s good, down in Albuquerque. I have two friends who are starting there this year. They played on the team with me.” 

“What’re you thinking of studying?”

“Dad thinks a business degree would be a good idea.”

“Does he expect you to come back and work on the ranch after you graduate?”

“We haven’t talked about it. I don’t think he’d push me into that if I didn’t want to.” 

“So, whatever you want.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Unless we get into another war, and you get drafted. The Russians sure don’t like what Reagan has to say about those defense satellites.”

“There’s no draft going on now.” 

“There was when I was your age.”

“Were you drafted?”

Ennis shook his head. “The only thing that kept me from going in the army was getting married. You know about Floyd’s son, don’t you?”

“Sure. He died in Vietnam.”

“He was just nineteen. How old are you?” 

“I’m seventeen, eighteen in December.” 

Seventeen. When Ennis had been seventeen, he’d been working side by side with K.E. at whatever ranch job they could get, traveling from place to place with no roots, bunking in a crap trailer they pulled behind an old pick-up that started maybe half the time. It’d been the year that Ennis had finally started sprouting up into his man’s height, with sleeves halfway to his elbows and jeans halfway to his knees, though he’d been working as hard as any man for years past. He’d been scared right down to his bones since the day his folks had driven off the road, though he never let anybody know. He’d been hungry more times than he was full. He’d ached inside for so many things that he never let himself make a list of what he needed but didn’t have: a mom to tell him things would be all right, a roof over his head at the end of the day that he could call home, a friend. 

A family came walking toward them up the pathway, a man and woman with a boy and girl skipping along before them. Ennis nodded to them, grateful for the chance to stop talking and eat instead. When they were gone, the gray-haired man who’d been praying showed up, looking like he’d spent some time crying too. He walked past without looking at them or saying anything. Tag seemed to be looking down to the road, maybe checking to see if anybody he knew was driving past, but at any rate he kept quiet long enough for Ennis to finish the sandwich and lick the crumbs off his fingers. 

“You want a cupcake? I won’t tell your mom.”

Tag looked up at him with a little smile. The boy was handsome with those big brown eyes, was a smart kid, and had a good hand with horses. He had a lot going for him if he didn’t throw it all away. 

“Sure,” Tag said.

The cake was maybe past its prime, a little stale, but the icing was good. Tag ate his in three bites, but Ennis took his time, drinking from the juice bottle to wash it down. 

“You ready to go?”

Tag nodded, looking at him and probably wondering why they’d been sitting there. Ennis figured he’d better finally tell him. He stood up, and the boy came with him as he started back down to the trucks. 

“I don’t want to see any more stuff in the back pasture shed,” he said, as definitely as he could. Their shoes crunched the sand on the path. “You hear me?”

“What? I don’t—”

“You listen. If you’re part of those break-ins that have been going on in the valley, you need to stop it. I won’t ask if you had a hand in those horses being taken from your own ranch, but if you were then—”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that, and nobody I know did either. My mom’s been upset over losing Jersey.”

Ennis looked at him sideways, but Tag was stubborn in not looking back. “I don’t know if you’re telling the truth or not, but that’s not what we’re talking about. One more thing. If you’re doing drugs so serious that you need money to buy them, and that’s why this is going on, then those are the kind of drugs that you need to stay away from. Do you hear what I say?”

Tag kept walking. “I hear you. Not that it’s any of your business.” 

“You made it my business when you started storing things on the ranch that you likely stole. I’m foreman of your folks’ place. I can’t let stuff like that happen there. We can talk about this man to man without your mom and dad knowing or the cops either, at least for now. But I am not going to look the other way the next time I see something. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.” 

“You’d be a damned fool to throw away the good life you could have by getting hooked on drugs or getting caught and thrown in jail. I don’t expect colleges take kids with records.” 

“I’m not throwing away my life.” 

“It doesn’t look that way from where I’m sitting. The cops aren’t dumb, you know.”

“It’s just for fun. Nothing serious.” 

“You’ve gone past fun, I reckon. That’s why you’re hearing from me. I don’t want trouble, and I don’t figure I’ll be saying anything more about this unless you give me reason to. Okay?”

There wasn’t anything like a youngster who was guilty and knew it but resented having it pointed out to him. The look Tag finally gave him was hot enough to fry eggs.

“Have you heard all I’ve said?” Ennis asked, pushing the words hard. 

“You aren’t my dad.”

“You’d better be glad I’m not. Now get on home to your Sunday dinner and think about what I said.” 

Ennis watched the truck spin wheels as Tag pulled out way too fast. He wondered how Jack was getting on with Bobby. 

*****

The last time he’d checked, the clock in the kitchen had shown past ten-thirty p.m., and still no pick-up had pulled into their drive, and no Jack had shown for him to yell at. Ennis had started to worry a long ways back and now understood clear as could be what had brought Jack outside that night when he’d hit the deer. 

He was dozing in his chair with the TV going low when the phone rang. He jerked up and was reaching for it, saying _hello?_ before he was even completely awake.

“It’s me.”

“Jack? Everything okay? Where you calling from?”

“Dalhart.”

Fuck. “You still in Texas?”

“Yeah. Listen, I can’t drive any more. I’m at a Best Western motel here, and I’m stopping for the night.”

“You sound wrung out.”

“I am.” 

“A hard weekend, I guess.”

“You can say that again.” 

“I thought you were gonna leave in the afternoon, get here in plenty of—”

“Excuse me if I wanted to spend some more time with my son!”

“Hold your horses, I ain’t saying nothing. Only wondering.” 

“At least I’m calling to let you know I won’t be coming home tonight, not like some dumbass I know.”

“Glad you did call. I was getting worried.” 

“You were born worried.”

“Hey, no need for that.”

“Got all your fingernails bit off?”

“Bud, they were goners when we moved here.” 

“Yeah, I know it. You okay?”

“Fine. Got some stuff to tell you, but it’ll wait. How’s Lureen?”

“It’s hard to tell. She looked about the same. I think she’s okay. She wouldn’t budge on telling Bobby, though. It about killed me, acting the lie in front of him. I did that for all those years over you and our fishing trips, pretending, and I thought I was through with it. It came on me awful hard.”

“Sorry you had to do that. You see anybody who gave you trouble?”

The sound of a long sigh came through the receiver. “Ennis, will you quit thinking I’m as dumb as a post? I did not parade around the town square with an _I Am Queer_ sign around my neck. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even see Faye or L.D.”

“Good. You didn’t need that old bastard interfering.”

“He’s the executor of the will. I’m going to have to deal with him sooner or later.”

“Later’s better. Uh, you see anybody else?”

The laugh track on the TV proved that something on a sitcom was hysterical.

“What?”

“You, uh, did you see anybody else?”

The TV switched to a commercial about some spray that would make everything clean.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? I snuck out on Saturday night, met up with Randy, and had wild sex with him all night long. Why else do you think I’m so cross-eyed tired I can’t even drive the next three hours to get home to you?”

“Come on, Jack, you know I didn’t mean that.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“I…I don’t know. Just wondering.”

“Well, stop it. There’s nothing to wonder about. Look, I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll be up at four to make it on time to work tomorrow. I’ll see you for dinner, okay?” 

“Shit.”

“What?”

“There’s a ranch closing down near El Turquillo, where I told you Floyd and me took those horses for Rocky.”

“So?”

“So I won’t be home for dinner, bud. The sale’s tomorrow night, and they’re advertising twelve good horses, and—”

“If you buy twelve horses, I swear I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.”

“I don’t have the cash to buy twelve, but one might do for Morgan’s wife, I’m thinking. I gotta aim for that sale straight after work.” 

“Christ, that’s what, an hour’s drive south?”

“Yeah. I won’t be back for a while.” 

“Well, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“It’d be better if I was home right now.”

“Damn right. I had plans.”

“Me too. Now my only plan is to get as much sleep as I can, right now.” 

“Guess that means I better get off the phone.” 

“Yeah, that’d be best. You sure you had a good weekend? Nothing happen to worry you?”

“Fancy bucked me off twice and my wrist’s swelled up.”

“Damn, it’s a good thing you didn’t land on your head.”

“Nah, it wouldn’t have made any difference then.” 

“I see you still have your dumbass sense of humor. I’ve got to go, can’t hardly keep my eyes open.” 

“Yeah, me too. I was half-asleep when the phone rang. You have a good sleep.”

“You too.”

“And don’t drive tomorrow morning until you’ve had some coffee.” 

“Will do. Don’t you bring home twelve horses.” 

“My trailer only holds two.”

“Don’t bring home two horses. Hear me?” 

“Good-night, Jack.”

“Night.”

*****

_The door opened even before he touched it. He walked from the freezing cold of the snow falling outside into the warmth of a big room with smooth plank walls and bare wood floors. Don Wroe’s cabin. The yellow glow of a fire flickered from the big fireplace. Above the mantle was a whitetail’s head with a big rack and antlers that had to score at least two hundred on the Boone and Crockett scale. It looked familiar. The deer grinned at him. Winked._

_Down on the floor Jack lounged on his back, laid out on a white rug like a trophy. Ennis took a couple steps toward him to stand at Jack’s feet. “What do you have clothes on for?” Ennis asked, his voice husky with need. His erection sticking out from his open fly felt like it was fifteen feet long._

_“I’m waiting for you, sweetheart, for the time you say we can be together.” Jack snapped his fingers, and he was naked._

_“Ain’t no sweetheart,” Ennis whispered as he eased down next to Jack. Touched his shoulder, smooth as a baby’s skin._

_Jack rolled over toward him, his gaze landing like a caress on Ennis’s face. “Light of my life,” he murmured. “Goddamned idiot asshole, you took so long. Forced me to where I didn’t want to go.”_

_Then Jack was in his arms. It was the best possible feeling in the world, the two of them hugging on the white bearskin. Ennis sighed with breath pulled up from the Wind River range in high summer, warm and sweet-scented with wildflowers, cause everything was okay when Jack was with him._

_He wondered if he had clothes on or if he was naked too, so he got up to look down and see. They looked mighty fine together, skin to skin, their lips touching in a kiss, Jack’s fingers raking through his hair, his own taking hold of the back of Jack’s neck to keep him in reach. He should take a picture of the two of them right then._

_“Jack,” he heard himself say down there in Jack’s embrace, his voice thick with meaning. “That makes a million times I said it. Jack. A million times and one.”_

_The look on his own face, it could have come straight from the movies, cause it told of how he felt on his man, how he never wanted anybody else. It told of all the days he’d gone without what he needed and how it felt now, this minute, to be living with Jack and have him close. Ennis wouldn’t ever find that look in a porn magazine. He knew the name to put to that look._

_“He’s a goddamned motherfucking queer,” his daddy said next to him._

_Ennis stuck his hands in his pockets, cause he was the one with the clothes, not Ennis-with-Jack. “He’s Jack,” he said, trying to explain. “Nothing else matters.”_

_“You’re just two guys who fuck. It ain’t natural,” Daddy said, reasonable as could be. “Take a look. Turns my stomach.”_

_Ennis looked down. His own head was thrown back, exposing the length of his neck to Jack’s mouth and his hungry lips, but if he was an animal, he’d be asking for it, for a quick attack from sharp fangs, a spurt of blood and he’d be a goner, throat torn out and blood on the snow._

_But it wasn’t Ennis’s throat that Jack was kissing. Even as he looked, his own face and body disappeared and changed into somebody else entirely. That was motherfucking Gary Shelborne under Jack’s mouth, the beanpole being touched by him. And Jack had lied, cause his dick was big like the ones in the Stallion spreads, so big it was hard for Jack’s fingers to wrap around it._

_It was a godawful feeling, seeing Jack touching the coach that way. A fierce, freezing wind cut through his insides and made him shiver. “No,” Ennis whispered, cause this was how it used to be._

_Another gust of wind and the coach was gone, his face replaced by a dark one Ennis knew from his midnight fears, the first man Jack had found in Mexico. The first was always remembered. This one knew exactly how to get Jack off. He turned Jack over onto his back and went down on his dick. He was a pro, after all, so much better than Ennis could ever be, cause Ennis didn’t know anything. Jack had been his only one. Ennis knew only one way to fuck, to kiss, to try to hold Jack and keep him from finding somebody better._

_“See what I mean?” his daddy asked from where he was over by the fire, leaning against the stone with his arms folded across his chest._

_One last time Ennis looked. He saw the dark man fade and another one take his place. He hadn’t ever put a face to that name but he knew who it was anyhow. Randall Malone. Who lived in Childress, where Jack had been._

_It damn near killed Ennis to watch Jack, down on the bearskin, lean in toward his old friend, his lips asking, seeking, and touch this other man’s lips with his own. Watch them kiss, open mouths, tongues flicking against each other. He wanted to kill them instead. And then he was standing over them, his spread legs to either side of their bodies pressed close, his hands tight in fists that would break a jaw with one swing._

_“Not good enough,” Daddy said. “You need a better weapon than that.”_

_Daddy reached into the fire and tugged at a flame. He finally pulled out a poker, all yellow melting metal, and tossed it the few feet to Ennis. He grabbed it and the heat seared a brand right across his palm, the way he felt he’d been marked by Jack, branded by Jack like the scars on his arm._

_“That’s right,” Daddy said. “Anybody who sees you, sees him. You can’t hide. Floyd saw Jack on you, don’t ya know? His come stains on your thighs, the smell of him on your breath. But now he’s with all these other faggots. Too much. Time to kill him off.”_

_He knew his daddy wanted him to do his dirty work, raise his hand high, bring the poker down on Jack’s head, see it crush bone, watch him fall back with sightless eyes. But this was Jack, looking up at him, facing him with no fear. He couldn’t do it, even to Jack-with-other-men._

_“I never knew their names,” Jack said to him, clear as a bell ringing, though Randall was taking his earlobe between his teeth. “Not even Randy’s. Not Gary’s. Don’t you know what that means?”_

_“No,” Ennis choked out, feeling he was broken and couldn’t be fixed. His heart was pounding fierce. It hurt his chest. “I don’t know what that means. Tell me. Tell me, Jack.”_

_“Ennis,” Jack said, his voice like a summer stream flowing gently over the land. Jack sat up, away from Randall Malone. “Ennis.” He stood, came close, and took Ennis’s face in his hands. His breath was sweet, and his eyes spoke only truth. But what truth? What did it mean? “Ennis.”_

_“Faggots,” his daddy growled. “I’ll get ya both with one swing. If Lureen’s dying, the two of you may as well go along with her.”_

_“No!” Ennis moaned, hearing his own voice like it was coming from far away, and suddenly he knew he was caught in a dream. “No!” He turned his own back to his daddy, shielding Jack from the poker, but then spun them around so it was Jack the fire would fall on._

_“That’s right, boy, save yourself.”_

_“No!”_

_His father’s face, seen over Jack’s shoulder, was twisted like a Halloween mask, savage and joyful. Jack, not knowing what was going on behind him, hugged him and whispered, “It’ll be all right.”_

_Goddamn it, he needed to wake up. Why wouldn’t Jack shake him and get him out of this fucking nightmare?_

_“No!”_

_“Say good-bye, boys. Make kissy-kissy and say good-bye.”_

_Daddy’s arm raised high…._

“No!”

Ennis sat up in a rush, heaving in big gasps. He grabbed the sheet and pulled it to his chest. Christ. Just a dream, just a dream. Shit. Shit. Not real. 

His eyes roamed to the space next to him, and even though he knew Jack wouldn’t be there, for a second his throat closed up to see it empty. Fuck. If Jack had been home when he should have been, he would have woke Ennis up, maybe before things got so bad.

He ran a hand across his face, feeling the stubble snag against his skin. Though he knew it couldn’t be so, still Ennis looked at both palms to see if the poker had burned him. There was no mark of fire. No mark of Jack on his hands, either, not like the normal men who were married to women, who wore a ring on their finger to show they weren’t queer. 

Ennis slid out of bed, cursing when his legs weren’t steady. The clock from the goddamned coach said three oh one, still dark night. Another hour before Jack’s alarm in another state went off and woke him up. 

He took steps away from that crowded bed, went over to the dresser and pulled out the top drawer where he figured Jack kept the cigarettes. He needed one bad. But when his fingers closed on the pack, he could tell it was empty. Why the fuck had Jack kept it? He squinted at it and then turned on the lamp to see a note taped to the front. 

_No more smokes for us,_ Jack had written across it in big letters, barely readable to Ennis without his glasses. _I want us to live to be a 100._

He couldn’t help it. A sound that was pretty close to a laugh made its way through his lips, surprising him even though it was cut off and low. That damn Jack Twist, finding a way to talk even when he wasn’t there.

“A hundred, huh?” he said out loud. “Always dreaming, ain’t you?”

But it wasn’t Jack who’d had the dream, it’d been him. Ennis heaved a sigh, wishing his daddy would leave him be. He was getting tired of being attacked in the night. 

He tossed the pack onto Jack’s pillow. Then he pulled on his jeans and a t-shirt and went out to the kitchen. He needed to get away from all those men with Jack, get away from those _Stallion_ men who’d been with him, and get away from the shame of how he’d turned Jack’s back to his daddy’s raised arm. 

He rooted around in the closet for the bucket and mop. He wasn’t gonna sleep any more, and the floor needed cleaning. 

*****


	10. Fault Lines

Jack was tired in all sorts of ways, not just from too few hours of sleep in the Texas motel the night before, but tired deep down, next to where all his worst memories lived. 

He pushed back from the kitchen table where he’d eaten the chicken-fried steak sandwich that he’d got at Maudie’s on his way home, left the wrappings scattered in front of him, and turned his feet to the bedroom. He thought of sleep as he walked through the empty front room, wishing he could, knowing he wouldn’t do that. It would be best to stay up to a normal sleeping hour and fight to keep his eyes open until Ennis was home, whenever that might be. 

He took two steps inside and stopped short to see something on his pillow. What? Had Ennis maybe left a message for him? Even as he allowed the thought he threw it out the window, but…. 

He went closer to the rumpled sheets and saw that it was his cigarette pack with the reminder he’d put on it, so that he could stay off the smokes. He was shamed at the disappointment that came up keenly, tightening his throat because there was nothing from nobody here for him. Ennis must have been rooting around for cigarettes and left this to jeer at how Jack kept falling off the wagon. Of course Ennis hadn’t thought to write him a note. He’d say such doings were for women, not men like them.

Jack ran a hand across his jaw, feeling raw inside, feeling a painful hunger that wasn’t being fed, but not knowing why or how it had come to be. He understood that Ennis was not going to drop his efforts to make his business grow, and he wanted good things to happen from his fellow’s honest effort. Just… it would’ve been nice if Ennis had been able to keep to his regular hours this one time, so at least he’d been here when Jack pulled up the drive. Would’ve been nice. 

All those years meeting in the mountains, all that driving, all that waiting. 

The house was too quiet, and his thoughts were too loud. There were some things a person just didn’t know: when Ennis would be here with him, when Lureen was going to die.

Jack changed his mind about unpacking right then, pushed both his hands into his pockets, and walked around into the side bedroom they needed to fix up for Bobby. He stood in the middle and rotated around on one heel trying to imagine Bobby’s stuff here. There weren’t even blinds on the bare window. They’d have to do something about that, go into the Sears store in Taos and get those. Harder to imagine than Bobby’s stuff, though, was Bobby himself here. Jesus. Bobby and Ennis. That was going to be…. 

Jack frowned down at the bare wood floor, all scuffed up and made uneven by who knew how many feet coming and going over the forty years the house had stood on this land. Bobby should have found a better way to arrange his time this past weekend. He’d known his dad would be there, hadn’t he? Hadn’t he? So why hadn’t he made the time? Maybe Bobby just didn’t care.

Escaping from the hurt of that thought got him moving again, out into the back room with the TV, where he considered turning on the window air conditioner because it was warm this sixth day in August. Without taking off his shoes, he climbed up to stand on the couch that ran the width of the room and fiddled with the dial, then pulled out the filter. This was one old AC. The filter was black with dust and God knew what else. It made his nose wrinkle to think of him and Ennis breathing in the gunk or to think of Bobby breathing in contaminated air when he eventually spent time with them here. Jack slid back down to the floor and took the filter to the kitchen, where he cleaned it and left it on the counter to dry. 

The Cardinals were playing the Dodgers on ABC already, but Jack couldn’t sit still for it. Maybe Lureen back in Childress would watch the whole game, because she was a big fan too, one of those things they’d shared as husband and wife. It had been Lureen who’d got him started on the Redbirds, and Lureen who’d been most eager to see a game back then. In the early years of their marriage, he’d gone along for the ride and then was genuinely bitten by the bug himself. At least then he hadn’t had to fake the interest, like he’d faked so many other things. Damn, he hoped she lived to see the World Series this year. 

Clean, moving air was what he needed. While trying not to think of or feel anything else—he was tired, that was all—a minute later he was out the side door into the heat. There was still plenty of light left, so he walked down to the pasture to make sure Ennis’s horses were okay. Jigger was closest to the fence and came over to Jack, looking for a handout. Jack scratched him behind his ears and thought of how he used to really like riding with Ennis in the mountains. It was one of the few things he missed about those times. 

Jigger shook himself all over and then went off, leaving Jack leaning against the fencepost by the stable. He considered getting a stall ready for whatever horse Ennis brought home, but wasn’t it likely Ennis would consider that butting in where he wasn’t welcome? He wandered around looking for something okay to do, saw that the door to the shed was about to come off its hinges, and spent some time putting it right. After that he raised dust rooting around, checking what equipment and stuff they had and didn’t have, something he should have checked months before but had never got around to. A man did need the right tool for the job.

By the time he was done in the shed it was falling dark. Jack stood in the stableyard and wiped the sweat from his face with the tail of his shirt pulled out of his pants. Good pants and good shirt he should’ve changed from, to be doing outdoor work in the summer heat, and they were plenty sweat-stained now. Sighing, he took himself off to the house again, stripped right there in the middle of the kitchen, and stuffed his clothes into the washing machine, including his socks. He thought he should be cooler, naked, but it was still fucking hot inside the house, and it hardly seemed to make a difference. 

He leaned the flats of his hands against the rumbling machine, not able to escape a memory, one of those he could sure live without. Why the hell were these bad thoughts coming to him so strongly now, when finally he’d got to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, living here with Ennis? 

_He walked into the Childress house a lot later than usual, coming into the kitchen from the garage. Lureen surprised him, standing next to the dishwasher with her white skin gleaming, her perfect breasts exposed for his touch, and one of her brash smiles lighting up the room. That was the only thing she was wearing, that smile. Confident, with only a trace of being maybe a little embarrassed, or maybe not certain that this bright idea of hers was a good one. If it was a good idea, it would get her what she wanted, a husband wild after her, a tiger in her bed. Any man—any man not like him—would sweep her up eagerly, because at the age of thirty-seven she was still a fine-looking woman with a figure to be proud of._

_But she had really bad timing. Because the reason he was late—he’d just been with Randy for the first time._

He had never worked harder to get it up with Lureen in bed. There was no way she hadn’t noticed. After that pathetic excuse for passion, they’d pretty much finished the downhill slide they’d already been on and gone straight to the bottom in the bedroom department. 

Had it been possible for him to be any more messed up than he’d been that night? Ennis, Randy, Lureen, Ennis…. It had taken him almost a year and a half to say _okay_ to Randy’s quiet invitations that demanded nothing of Jack…except what he wanted so badly to give only to Ennis. He’d surrendered that night, finally giving in to what his body ached for and in the process tromping all over his own dreams. Guys on the road were one thing, a whore every once in a while in Mexico another, but a man he would fuck and get fucked by and then see at the PTA meeting with his wife the next day was….

Jack found clean underwear in his dresser drawer, put on jeans and a t-shirt as fast as he could, and then he sat on the bed to bend over and lace up his old pair of sneakers. That night when Lureen had ambushed him in the kitchen, he’d been desperate for a drink to chase away the taste of Randy coming in his mouth: something sharp, something overwhelming, anything but beer or the whiskey he and Ennis always drank. 

At the same time, he’d needed to shower, to wash away the sure knowledge that this first time was far from the last time. Already he knew he’d be going back for more. 

Randy’d had nothing of Ennis’s insistent, sharp angles that had dug their way into every part of Jack in those few summer weeks on Brokeback. He’d never once asked why it had taken Jack so long to give in; he’d just been glad he could get his rocks off with another man without sneaking over to the next county. Randy wasn’t into questions or answers or hearing what Jack never put into words. He’d wanted a friend with a little extra, someone to share a laugh with, share a beer with, share a dick with…. For Randy, the easy-going guy who didn’t want to change anything else in his life, Jack had been perfect.

Jack tied his shoelaces in a tangle, cursed, tried again, got them right, and then straightened, breathing hard against how not-perfect for him his whole life had been. Fuck. 

Damn, he wished Ennis would get home. He needed that man.

*****

On Monday night as he drove home from El Turquillo, with his headlights cutting a bright path through the dark, Ennis thought on seeing Jack again.

He knew his lips curved up, but that was okay, as there was nobody to see him in the dark but the radio. He was looking forward to everything that Jack-being-home meant. The lovemaking for sure. That dumb way he had of reaching to scratch his own back, always the same spot that was hard to get to. Even the damn blathering, cause it was noticeable when it was gone, and silence reminded Ennis too much of those alone years after the divorce. Mainly, just knowing Jack was around, close, something to aim for. The pull on his mind satisfied.

A road sign passed by. Yeah. Jack-home. Ennis needed him home after the fucking dream, he needed a big dose of everyday life to remind him that things would be okay and there was no need to have those bad dream-thoughts linger in his mind the way they’d done all the past day.

People and horses alike needed a steady routine. He didn’t like these days that were different one from the other, and it would be a relief to get back to normal living. There’d been too much traveling going on. Jack needed to stay put for a good long while, cause Kansas City, then Childress, they’d come way too close together. Even if Ennis did understand the circumstances, it didn’t mean he liked them.

But Jack was gonna be there when he pulled in. Ennis hummed a little patch of a song, not sure which one, something he’d heard, and the air blowing in through the open window where he had his elbow propped was fine, pine-scented. He didn’t let himself linger on how it bothered him sometimes, how he thought on Jack so strong too often. That wasn’t like normal people, and sure as hell wasn’t like normal men. 

His stomach grumbled, as he was plenty hungry, but he paid it no mind. Not too long now, less than twenty minutes. He checked on the trailer in his rearview mirror, saw a flash of light and a car pulling out from the side of the road….

Afterward, Ennis cursed as he got under way again, getting madder and madder. As soon as he got out of sight of the cop, he crumpled up the ticket and threw it down to the floor, as far from him as he could get it. Officer of the law, fuckit, the cop had been no more than a kid. Looked to be Junior’s age. What the hell was he doing picking on good folks like Ennis, only trying to get home to some peace and quiet? He should be out doing real cop work.

Ennis turned onto County Road 19 still mad enough to chew horseshoes, and when he made to turn into their own drive, no way was he paying attention like he should have. At the last second he caught sight of the pothole there on the side, the one he always drove around, but it was way too late to do anything but roll right down into it. 

_Wham!_ He jounced in his seat, up, down, yelling _Goddamn it!_ at the top of his lungs, fearing what that hole was doing to his alignment, his tires, and the axles of his fine, new-to-him truck that Jack had got him to pay good money for. Anxiously, he glanced in the mirror and winced when the trailer lurched too. No way that was good for the horses. Fucking cop! Fucking, goddamned life that had him driving back to the house in the dark, tired and hungry. The only good thing was Jack home again where he fucking belonged.

Ennis drove past the house down to the stable, feeling the long day in his sore back as he pulled on the parking brake. Slowly, he opened the truck door and slid out, stretched for a couple seconds, and then trudged around to the back of the trailer. 

But before he could bend to reach for the ramp, he heard what he’d been straining to hear, and he wasn’t shamed by the little jump in his chest. He was living with the fella, wasn’t he? Not from accident but from choice, cause he didn’t want to live any other way. Ennis turned with a smile, and out of the nighttime shadows came the shape of the man who made him glad.

“Hey,” he said as Jack came toward him, but Jack didn’t say a word and didn’t stop. He just kept walking right up to him. Ennis had no trouble stepping into Jack’s open arms, behind the sheltering bulk of the trailer.

It felt real good, pulling Jack close, what he’d been missing found again. A lot of what had tightened his chest began to loosen. Jack gripped him harder, and then Ennis felt a kiss planted south of his ear. He let out a rumble of this-ain’t-so-bad and pulled back enough to see Jack’s face in the glow from the stableyard lights. 

“Like old times, ain’t it?”

“I like new times better,” Jack said with a smile.

“You ain’t lying,” Ennis agreed. 

But Jack’s eyes were suddenly fixed over Ennis’s shoulder. 

“What…. What the hell is that?”

Ennis refused to let go, refused to turn too, cause he knew what it was Jack was seeing. “It doesn’t matter.” 

But it mattered to Jack, that was clear. He stepped back out of Ennis’s reach and walked up to the trailer. “You bought two horses. You fucking bought two horses.”

Ennis came up next to him and bent to unlatch the ramp. “Yep. Best horse auction I’ve been to yet. I could’ve bought ten of them, they were that good. Had a hard time deciding—”

“Didn’t you hear me last night?

“I listen when you talk, most of the time.” Ennis gave the ramp a tug, and on the other side Jack put his hand to the task too. 

As the incline came out with a screech under their hands, Jack frowned at him. “I said you shouldn’t buy two horses.” The ramp hit the dirt with a thump.

“You say lots of things.” 

“I meant it!”

“Ah, come on, Jack.”

“Oh, yeah? Come on where? I can’t believe you bought two.” 

Ennis grunted, not liking the tone. “Damn right I did.”

“That’s too many! That makes five horses you’ve got now, four of them to train. Who do you think you are, Superman? You planning on quitting your day job?’

“Fuck off, Jack,” Ennis said, and he went up the ramp and into the trailer. 

Jack must have been waiting for Ennis to drive up, the same way Ennis had been waiting for him the night before when Jack had stopped for sleep in Texas. That was all well and good, but it didn’t look like this coming-home was gonna go down easy. Well, to hell with that. He shoved the pinto’s rump to the side with his shoulder and then went up to the gray’s head to yank the lead rein from where it was tied. It was too much to ask that Jack keep his mouth shut about this, considering how he was. 

“Come along.” The gelding tossed his head at the rough handling. His hooves clanged against the metal as Ennis led him down to the ground, but Ennis was checking out the way Jack was standing, stiff and riled up, his face lit up weird on one side by the outside light. Moths were flying all around, and Ennis swatted them away. 

Ennis brought the horse to a standstill and slid his free hand not holding the lead rein up along the strong curve of his shoulder, to where he could feel the warmth of the animal against his skin. He tried to get past his mad, cause mad wasn’t what he wanted. Jack didn’t either, he felt sure. 

“This one’s bred real fine. He’s for Janice.”

With no give in them, Jack’s eyes ranged over the horse. “He looks like more than a thousand dollar horse. And ladies always like the grays. Does he move good?”

“He sure does. The problem is manners. He’s a little green, but he’s young. I figure some work and—” Ennis broke off as his man’s lips tightened. 

Jack jerked his head toward the trailer. “And I guess that pinto in there needs plenty of work too.” 

“He’s worse than Samson was,” Ennis admitted with a twitch of his shoulders.

“And you bought him anyway.”

“Damn right. Since when are you the guy writing the checks for these animals?” 

“It’s not the money! You do what you want with your money, I don’t give a damn. But four to train…. You had your hands full with just Samson and Delilah.” 

“You turn into my boss since you left for Childress? I don’t take orders from—”

“Orders? Jesus Christ. This is some kind of joke to you, isn’t it?”

“It would’ve been a joke to pass up that second horse. I couldn’t—”

“The last time I checked, there was only one of you, Ennis Del Mar. And now you’ve got five horses. And goddamn it, one of me.” With quick steps, Jack was suddenly in his face. “Remember me?” Jack pointed to his own chest. “Fellow by the name of Jack Twist. But nobody seems to remember me or care one fucking damn thing about me.” 

“The hell. This ain’t about you, this horse was—”

“I get it.”

“Shit, no you don’t.”

“You think I don’t? I know this is the way it is. But once, just once I wish that somebody would give a flying fuck about what I want.” 

“You sound like—”

A fist got shook before his nose. “If you say I sound like a woman I will lay you out in the dirt, and don’t think I can’t do it.” From the fire in Jack’s eyes, Ennis could see he meant it. “I put up with your shit for twenty years.”

“What the hell does that got to do with—”

“I’ve never been first with anybody. Shit on that. Fuck on that. Go take care of your fucking horses.” 

He watched while Jack turned around and disappeared into the dark, walking back to those rooms that had seemed without much reason-for-being the whole weekend that Jack had been gone. Ennis was positive, though, that he needed to make clear that the shit-giving worked both ways. He yelled across the yard, “I’ll buy whatever goddamned horse I feel like buying, you asshole.” 

He stood there for a time, feeling bad that the welcome home that he’d wanted to give and to get had turned so sour. What the hell had got into Jack, anyway? He must have had one hell of a bad trip, to set him off like that. Shit, Jack knew where he stood with Ennis, right? That he was…. And where did he get off telling Ennis what to do? What did he expect, for him to call and get permission before putting his money down? 

The other horse moving uneasily in the trailer brought him back to where he was. It must be close to ten o’clock, and he’d not eaten anything since the lunch he’d brought to the ranch. He was so hungry his stomach felt pinched in two, but the horses needed settling first. 

The gray kicked up some fuss as he led him into the stable and tied him in the aisle, sort of like Fancy on her good days, but the pinto acted like he was just this side of death’s door as he came out of the trailer, slow and scared. It took some time to get the two box stalls set up the way Ennis wanted, as he liked keeping the horses indoors the first night or two. Later he would let them into the paddock, before setting them free with the others in the larger field. Horses didn’t all get along. They had likes and dislikes and had tempers on them. Like one man he could name, though Jack didn’t show it too much.

By the time he had both horses set, he could have eaten the feed he poured into the feed racks himself. Then he forced himself to check over the Ram, which seemed okay, and lock up the truck with the evidence from the cop in it, before taking the walk back to the house. It seemed plenty long. 

The TV was going in the back room when he opened the door. He figured that’s where Jack was. He ran the water and washed up to his elbows from the stink of the day, wondering if that man was gonna show, but he didn’t. Checking the fridge showed that there was a big sandwich sitting on the middle shelf, with a bunch of red grapes on top, and it sure hadn’t been him that’d put that stuff there. Chicken fried steak on a bun from Maudie’s. That somebody that wasn’t him must have got dinner on the way home for both of them. He stood over the counter and wolfed the food down, and afterward needed a drink. There was plenty of cold beer. He grabbed one bottle of Corona, stood in front of the open refrigerator a second with his hand stretched out, and then took a Heineken too. Jack had some fancy tastes. 

Jack was sitting in Ennis’s old chair watching a baseball game, with his feet propped up on the couch by sitting sideways that way he did. Curt Gowdy was saying _Halfway through the seventh inning, the score is the Dodgers two and the Cardinals one._ Ennis had forgotten that there was Monday night baseball on, not that it would have made any difference. Jack didn’t look up, but Ennis walked over to him anyway and held out the beer, silently. At least Jack took it. 

Ennis settled on the couch in a sprawl and felt his aching body sink into the cushions. He was thirty-nine, almost forty in a month or so, not sixty, but sometimes the long days caught up with him. More than half the baseball season had gone by with him only seeing a couple games all the way through. He sure hadn’t seen all of that game the afternoon they’d looked at the porn together. His gaze wandered from the TV to the scratched-up wood paneling on the wall, stayed stuck on that a little while, and then he took a peek at Jack. It seemed he was concentrating awfully hard on the game and pretending he didn’t even know Ennis was there. Well, Ennis was gonna see this game through to the end, Jack spitting mad or not. 

The beer went down smooth. It was more than half finished and they were coming up on the bottom of the eighth inning before he figured it was time words were said in that room. 

“Good thing this is a west coast game or I would’ve missed it.”

Some more time passed before Jack said, his eyes still fixed to the TV screen, “The Cardinals aren’t going to pull this one out.” 

Ennis grunted. “One swing over the fence’ll tie it.”

“The bottom of the order’s coming up. This’ll be a loss.”

“You’re lucky you got to see the Redbirds at all. It’s gonna be the Republican convention soon enough. That’ll be all that’s on.”

“Damn.”

They watched the Dodgers put a man on, the Cards made an error that brought another curse from Jack, and then a double brought a run home before a new relief pitcher struck out three in a row. A commercial for baseball, apple pies, and Chevrolet came on. 

Ennis offered from the depths of the cushions, “I can’t believe the Democrats nominated that woman for vice president. I don’t know what they were thinking. The Republicans won’t be that dumb.” 

“I don’t know. Might be a good move, putting her with Mondale.” 

“No way.” 

“Maybe.” 

The game ended with no more runs scored and a loss for Jack’s team. The scowl on his face showed he was taking it hard as he just sat there, the empty beer bottle hanging loose from his fingers. Ennis hauled himself to his feet.

“I’m hitting the sack. You should come too, you’re all tired out.” 

Jack looked at him, his eyebrows down low. “How the fuck do you know how I feel?”

Ennis forced himself to shrug. “Suit yourself.”

He hadn’t been in bed, lights-out, for two minutes before he heard movement and then water running from the bathroom sink. That man hadn’t been willing to admit he was out on his feet, but at least he was smart enough not to stay up all night out of spite.

When Jack slid under the sheet and rolled away from him without saying a word, Ennis figured that was just the way it was gonna be. He considered saying something cutting, like maybe asking if Jack was dumb enough to vote for the Democrats cause they had a woman on the ticket, but there didn’t seem to be much sense to that. He closed his eyes and let sleep take him. 

*****

Hadn’t never happened like this before. One second Ennis was half-asleep and confused, with stuff going on that he couldn’t…. The next second he was wide-awake with something warm and hard being pushed against his lips. 

A shadow over him, the sound of familiar heavy breathing, weight on his chest, shit, that was Jack sitting on top of him in the middle of the night, full dark, and what the hell did he think he was doing? Mad feeling and saliva flooded Ennis’s mouth, and he didn’t know whether to shove this damn man away, or take him in, or bite it off. Jack must have known he was awake and fuming, cause he got real still, though the tip of his dick didn’t stop pressing to be let in. 

Out their open bedroom window, a mockingbird began to sing a glory song, though it wasn’t near sunrise yet. Only the fringes of the yard light slipped in to outline shadows in the room. Ennis thought of what this must look like, an awful picture, him being sat on in such a way, except at the same time it was a picture that made his dick stir in his shorts. Or maybe it was the skin to skin with Jack, or the smell of him, not-showered from the day before, a man’s smell along with that musty scent from when dick and balls were freed to the open air after being kept in too long.

Being freed, wasn’t that what this was all about? What living together did for them both, being able to go at each other in all ways, even this way, any time they wanted? Any time they needed, and it seemed Jack needed right now.

The mockingbird cut off short, and there was the sound of flapping wings as away it went. Shit, he’d be nothing but dumb to say no to this. 

It seemed some kind of reflex to open up, and Jack’s dick slid in over his tongue. Ennis took him in as if it was natural. Jack made a relieved sound. 

Ennis made a home for that dick in his mouth, made a circle of his lips to hold it in, ran the flat of his tongue along the underside, and then kept it stiff for Jack to move against. Jack tasted good, the way Ennis had come to know a man tasted, or he guessed that’s how most men tasted, flat, a hint of salt coming and then going real fast as Jack pumped forward and then back, leaving the trail of his pre-come on Ennis’s taste buds. Jack was naked, as Ennis found out when his hands went to grab hipbones and then moved further around to Jack’s ass. His fingertips ran over the smooth skin. His fingers stretched to go flat so he could feel the muscles flexing, know the movement and the strength as Jack thrust, shallow but steady. 

A rush of heat lifted his dick, and he sucked real good. At the same time he rubbed all around that ass, letting his palms fill up with John Henry Twist Junior, home again, wanting what Ennis could give him, cause even though he was one prime dickhead and Ennis was plenty sore at him, he’d had some hard time in Childress, it seemed. 

“Damnit!” Jack hissed, and he jerked his dick away. “Watch the teeth.” 

Shit. Well, what had Jack expected, huh? Coming at him like this, not something they’d done in years that Ennis could remember. It was a strange way to get woke up, with a dick down his throat, a strange angle, and he wasn’t any expert at this doing it with other guys so he got lots of practice.

He reached around, wanting the taste of Jack again, but figured he’d better let the sting of being bit wear off some. He took the family jewels in hand instead. 

“Sorry,” he said, not very loud. 

Jack lifted up and planted his palms against the wall, and through the dark Ennis knew he was trying to look down at what was being done to him. That was just like him, to look when there wasn’t hardly light to speak of. 

“What do you say we try that again,” Jack whispered, and there was a nudge against his chin.

Ennis slid his fingers up around the shaft, liking the heat against his skin. “Don’t think I see much ‘we’ in this, Twist. I’m doing you a favor.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, if you’re going to do it, then do it. Only keep the damn teeth to yourself.”

Ennis went back to work, grunting first like he was mad and not willing, though he was eager to have Jack again, to take in that heaviness, to feel his own heart pumping harder cause this man always did that to him. His fingers circled around to keep the dick steady, but his other hand went down to pull back his own foreskin. 

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Jack said, so contrary this night that Ennis couldn’t follow him or know what he really wanted. A second later his mouthful was pulled away, and instead Jack shifted down and went flat. The whole length of Ennis’s body was covered, toes to knees to dicks, one against the other, to chests and then to mouths wet and hungry. 

He shoved up as their dicks came together for the first time that night, giving Jack a ride. Even through the thin layer of his shorts it felt damn good, a familiar fire that made him close his eyes and keep pushing up, little thrusts for now that would lead to bigger ones. He wrapped his arms around the guy who’d left food for him knowing he’d be hungry, willing to forget for a while the guy who objected to his horses. This was more like it.

Jack seemed determined, whatever the hell he was going after, and he attacked Ennis’s mouth like there would be no tomorrow. Ennis had no problem with that. He needed to reacquaint himself with the fine kisses that raised County Road 19 over the lonely shack in Wyoming. He lifted his head off the pillow to give the same as he got, wet and strong and stabbing, tongues taking turns sucking and being sucked. 

He ran his thumb along Jack’s upper lip as they kept the kiss going, along his moustache, and then went backwards against the hairs. He did it over again. Jack wriggled, cause he’d told how a tingle went through him when he got this favor, so Ennis threw one leg over Jack’s butt to keep him in place. Didn’t want him slipping off. His heel settled in the asscrack, like it was the normal place to be. Felt okay. After a little while, he moved his foot up and down. 

Jack’s shoulders shook even though by then he had Ennis’s lower lip between his teeth, and Ennis found he could let loose a ghost of a smile while his heel explored new territory. Huh, twenty-one years, not nearly enough nights, and still he found new things with him and Jack together.

Jack outright chuckled in his chest and then pulled back. Ennis couldn’t see enough to make out a smile, but he knew it was there. 

“You damn fool. You pick up a foot fetish while I was gone?”

Ennis noticed that Jack was making no move to get away from what he was doing “Hell, no. Ain’t that when somebody’s crazy over feet, anyway? Not this.” 

Jack swooped down and kissed his chin, a loud, smacking sound that filled the room. “Not this, neither.” He shifted a bit, not enough to throw the foot off, to press his lips under Ennis’s ear. “Not this.” Ennis obliged and turned his head on the pillow, giving a clear path to his ear lobe that Jack swiped with his tongue, something Ennis would have let him do for ten minutes straight, if he could last that long. 

Jack sucked like a baby at the tit but the whole thing, what they were doing, drove Ennis near to distraction, the pleasure of just this, Jack’s weight on him telling that even though there’d been no saying _welcome home_ in the evening, there sure was some welcoming going on at night. Ennis edged his hand in between them up high, where he could just reach to pinch a nipple between his fingers the way he knew made Jack sigh, and both Jack’s hands curled around the curve of Ennis’s shoulders, keeping him right where he wanted to be anyway. 

Where he wanted to be for only some little while. To hell with ten minutes. Before too long, enough was enough. Were they gonna fuck or not? Ennis grabbed Jack’s face between both hands and pushed his tongue in strong.

“Fuckit,” he growled. He shoved Jack away, sat up, and wriggled his undershorts down his thighs. When Jack got out of the way, he pushed them all the way to his ankles, where he kicked until they went flying off somewhere. 

Jack was leaning over him groping for the lube from the drawer. Ennis figured he’d had enough time to get it and tried to pull him back where he belonged. But Jack wasn’t having any of it. He shrugged away and put on the bedside lamp, which blinded Ennis and made him blink.

“Hey! What—”

Jack went down with his sweet mouth onto his aching hardness for no longer than it took Ennis to realize what he was doing, and then he was off again. 

“Hey!” he said again. 

Damn the man, he was like a butterfly tonight or a bee flitting all over a field. The next thing he was pushing Ennis flat again, then was propped up over him on one stiff arm by his shoulder, holding his dick in his other hand while looking down, bringing their erections closer and closer together.

“I wanted to see this,” Jack said, his voice quiet. “Make sure it’s real.”

Ennis went up on his elbows in a hurry, the spots clearing from his eyes in time to see Jack running the head of his dick straight up the underside of his own. There was just enough pressure to feel it, but not nearly enough to feel it as strong as he wanted to. The yearning for more made him take in a deep, shuddering breath. His dick gave a big twitch, he could see it, coming to that last bit of hardness before going off. His foreskin was pulled way back now cause he was definitely ready to go.

“It’s real,” he growled. And sizzling hot to see. There was no need for a photo spread of three guys together with Jack here.

“Guess so,” Jack whispered, and he did it again. And again. 

The feathery touches were driving Ennis crazy. He needed a whole lot more, a hand wrapped around him, a mouth, an ass, anything of Jack’s to take him in that was more than what he was getting right now, but he held himself still. This was Jack’s show and had been from the first blink awake. He was trembling on his elbows, though.

“You like this?” Jack asked, looking down to one of the finest sights Ennis had ever been blessed to see, their dicks side-by-side now, Jack’s tip buried in Ennis’s short and curlies, his own pushed up the same in Jack’s, their lengths—that’d always been well-matched that way even though different in others—pressed up against each other like they were attached and couldn’t be pried apart. Ennis wasn’t gonna be able to stay still another minute, the urge to grab and get going was something no man could hold off much longer, and Jack better know that….

“Mighty fine,” he managed to get out. 

“Yeah,” Jack said real low. Ennis flicked his eyes up and found an even finer sight: Jack gazing down at them together with one of those looks on his face that was the same to Ennis as if he’d sold a horse for ten million dollars, or maybe Junior’d been elected president or something. 

Then Jack turned that look on him, and everything stopped for a couple seconds. 

After that: KY spread on them both fast as could be, Jack dropping down on him again with some serious rocking together starting, and their mouths blending at last. It felt so good. This wasn’t something they did much, the last time months ago in Amarillo when Jack had complained about skid marks on his dick. But it seemed they’d taken care of that now with the grease between them. 

Ennis closed his eyes against the yellow light and just felt. Jesus. Every part of them that could be pressed together was. His dick slipping and sliding against Jack’s, pressed against his belly, was enough to cause his balls to start tightening up already. If Ennis could have pulled Jack all the way inside him he would’ve, but instead he stole air from Jack’s lips, wrapped arms around his shoulders, and threw his leg over his butt again, at the same time that Jack worked his arms under him, palms-flat, strong-minded for what he wanted. The only thing between them was the steam rising from their shared skin, with the lube not interfering but aiding them, gluing them together. 

It seemed they were of one mind during these minutes in the middle of the night. They was not gonna let themselves separate. Ennis was not gonna let them get apart, and Jack holding on to him so hard must be thinking the same thing. It wasn’t gonna be like those times Ennis had driven away from the trailhead, Jack in his rear-view mirror, like putting his own foot in a bear trap and triggering it with his own two hands, feeling that slashing pain as the jaws of the thing bit through flesh and bone, and there he’d lay, bleeding, cause nobody would come to get him loose, not see him rolling around on the ground, white froth staining his mouth. Like a hurt animal, he’d never wanted anybody to see him during those empty months, to know about the raw, bone-cracked pain inside. He wasn’t sure that Jack really knew how hard it’d been. Maybe Jack thought it’d been easy to put the truck in gear and drive away, something Ennis actually wanted, but it wasn’t, hadn’t ever been, even when he’d pretended it was. 

Nope, life wasn’t like that anymore. Mercy at last. 

He tore his mouth away from Jack’s long enough to gasp, “Missed you, you goddamned fuckhead,” before he went back to feeding on his man’s tongue. Jack couldn’t talk, but Ennis could hear Jack anyway, and figured he was heard too.

_it was a shitty weekend in childress_

_it wasn’t any picnic here either_

_i missed you_

_thought of you more than i should have_

_you’ve got too many horses_

_you’ve got no business butting in my business_

_i want to butt in your whole life it’s all i ever really wanted_

_i wanna butt in your butt gonna fuck you so you won’t forget it but not until tomorrow cause what we’re doing now…it’s pretty damn good_

_you’re pretty damn good_

_you make me feel pretty damn good jack fucking twist best goddamned lay in the whole state_

_ennis you know I can’t stand too much of this gonna come real soon gonna fall straight down from the mountaintop_

_go ahead go ahead go ahead I’m here to catch you_

Another thing that hadn’t happened before, Jack’s tongue still down his throat as he drove the last times against Ennis’s belly. Jack didn’t pull away to lift his head, gasping. Instead he stayed where he was, wrapped up in Ennis’s arms and under his leg, and grabbed Ennis with iron fingers against his back, bone-crushing, like he wanted to leave marks. 

Jack shook all over as he began to spray between them, fighting to keep their tongues together. Ennis helped him by grabbing the back of his head so he couldn’t get away. It worked. Jack made a sound like a freight train wailing off in the distance directly into Ennis’s mouth. It seemed like they were passing something between them. 

Must have been. Thirty seconds later, with them still glued together in all ways, Ennis gave it all up in turn to Jack. 

*****

The mockingbird might be gone, but the night was captured by a choir of cicadas in the trees. The sound came to Ennis as he fought to get his breath back, first low, but then it grew loud before settling back down to a buzz. Rising and falling, rising and falling, it was some strange serenade for him and Jack in a rhythm no man could figure out. Some nights that noise bothered him and kept him awake, but right now, flat on his back in this bed that was Jack’s too, his body’s tension gone cause it’d flowed out onto the man who was home now, the cicadas were welcome to do their thing. Not real tuneful, but still one of nature’s songs. 

Ennis closed his eyes against the nightstand light still on and heaved a deep-down sigh. In. Out. “Damn.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I sure needed that.”

“Me too.”

Ennis groped to find Jack’s hand and took it in his, where it took up all the space that Ennis had to give, not like Alma’s or Cassie’s. 

He laced their fingers together, not letting himself think it was a pansy thing to do. “I like this.” He swallowed, remembered how Jack needed filling up, and forced out, “I like it when you shoot against me so I can feel it.” 

Some small silence from the other side of the mattress. 

“You like a man in your bed, Ennis,” Jack said, sort of definite.

He managed not to wince, as Jack was probably staring at him, and he knew that Jack would be impatient with that. 

“I guess. Yeah. Like you here.”

Jack’s thumb started making circles against his palm. “We both need it that way. I figured it out a long time before you would admit it. I sure never got what I needed with Lureen.” 

Ennis sent a frown up toward the ceiling. Sex with Alma had never been right. He’d thought he’d tried to make it right in those early years, but looking back he wondered if he’d put all that much effort into it. 

Jack took his hand away and sat up. Ennis opened his eyes to see him wiping his belly with the sheet, then lifting his dick to get to his balls, and finally he ran the cotton up and down his dick too. Looking on, even drained as he was with no chance of getting it up anytime soon, still a sizzle of something electric, or maybe like a shot of whiskey, raced through him, mainly down below. Damn, Jack turned him on. 

But Jack didn’t know he was being checked out. He grabbed a different fistful of sheet and held it over Ennis. “You want me to clean you? I can sleep like a baby when you come all over me, but this much of the slippery stuff would keep me awake.” 

“Sure.” 

He watched while Jack mopped him up. “Be careful, I’m ticklish.”

Jack threw him an irritated glance. “You going to keep reminding me of that until we’re old and gray?”

Ennis reached up and touched the ends of the thick hair Jack had been blessed with, not like his own that showed signs of thinning whether he liked it or not. “I think you got the gray part covered.” 

“You wait, someday you won’t have any hair at all. I’ll laugh at you then.”

“Shithead.”

“Dumbass. We need to change these sheets tomorrow.” Jack glared down at the big spots marking the white. “You know, I’m getting sick of that.”

“What?”

“You’re always outside with the horses, and that means I’m the one who does most of the laundry. I’ll be the one washing these sheets.”

“Damn, we gonna fight about that right now?”

“We go through more sheets than a…a motel. It’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t mind come stains, but I ain’t gonna sleep on shit. Besides, it’s a good sign, I figure. We’re still hot on each other.”

“You think, maybe?” 

“Asshole. Come on down here where you belong, and tell me how things went in Childress.” 

Jack let himself be pulled down to Ennis’s chest. After no more than a second or two, he pushed himself back so they weren’t touching and curled up on his side facing Ennis instead. “You said on the phone you had stuff to tell me.”

“It’ll wait.” 

“No, tell me. Hold on, how’s your wrist? You said Fancy threw you.” Jack tapped Ennis’s left arm. “Which one did you hurt?” 

“This one.” Ennis lifted it. In the lamp’s glow the bruise was ugly. “It’s better today. Not too bad.”

“Glad you didn’t break it. Someday one of those fucking horses will knock you on your head out on that trail you use, and it’ll be a week before I notice you didn’t come home that night.” 

“Ain’t you sweet.” 

“That’s what they tell me. So, what’d you want to say?”

“That kid, Tag, the oldest one? Him and some friends are stealing stuff around the valley and storing it on the ranch before they fence it. Small pickings, but even so.” 

“You’re kidding.”

“I figure they’re using the money for drugs. I saw stuff in a shed, and then I saw Tag transfer it to one of his friends in that Vietnam Memorial’s parking lot.” 

“You went to the Memorial?” 

Jack looked surprised, and it did seem funny now that Ennis’s attention was called to it. It wasn’t something that he would have thought of doing when he lived in Wyoming, but here in New Mexico…. Maybe it was the wide arms of the valley? It was easy to travel around here. “Yeah. There was nothing else to do with you gone, so I went up there Sunday late.”

“What are you going to do about the boy?”

“Nothing, I hope. I had words with him, told him it had to stop right there. I figure he knew I meant it.” 

“You think his folks know?”

“If they don’t know he’s smoking dope and drinking late, they’re blind, but I don’t imagine they know about this other. If he settles down, I don’t see a need to say anything.”

“It sure wouldn’t get you in good with your bosses, turning their son in to the cops.”

Ennis grunted and scratched at a drying spot on his hip that Jack had missed, thinking of the speeding ticket outside in his truck, and then of the only time he’d been in court, the shame of the divorce day. “I don’t want to do that.” 

“If it was just joints, he’d probably get off easy, maybe probation. But no judge will turn a blind eye to breaking and entering. I’m not sure it’s a good thing you turning a blind eye, but I don’t see what else you can do.” 

“Yeah.” The thought of what Rocky or BJ might say or do if worst came to worst didn’t sit well. He turned to look at Jack and asked, “So, Lureen really okay?”

Jack had that look of when he was worried or things weren’t turning out the right way. He’d let Ennis see it only a couple times over twenty years, but it was a whole lot more familiar to him now. Jack let loose a sigh that sounded plenty frustrated. “I guess she’s all right. I mean, as good as somebody with that hanging over her head can be. She was real pissy most of the weekend.” 

Ennis considered. “I can see her getting like that.”

“Yeah, I had to keep reminding myself to be nice. I tried to keep on her good side and not upset her. I ran errands for her and did a bunch of things around the house.”

“That boy of yours helping out the way he should?” 

“That boy of mine doesn’t know what’s going on, remember? He thinks his mom is recovering fine from the mastectomy, and she can go back to living her life just for him. Have you forgotten what teenagers are like?”

“Not all of them. But even Junior had a touch of that when she was that age, I guess.”

“You and your Junior, you think she’s some sort of saint.” 

“Like hell.” Ennis shoved at Jack’s shoulder, fighting the irritation and mostly meaning the shove. “She’s a good girl.”

“Yeah, well, we all aren’t so blessed.”

Ennis let that go for a while, but when Jack didn’t say anything more, he asked, “Bobby give you problems?”

“Not unless you count that I hardly saw him all weekend.” Jack rolled over onto his back. His hands moved in the air, making a point. “He had to see this friend and that friend, go out with some girl Friday night, go off to see some rock band playing on Saturday night, slept in until twelve forty-five Sunday afternoon, for God’s sake. His mama kept saying let him be, he’s a growing boy.” 

“Spoiled boy, sounds like.”

Jack sat up, pulled the sheet over his lap, folded his hands on it, and then, restless, shoved it back down to his feet. “Fuck, it’s hot.” 

“It’s August, bud.”

“I should’ve known we’d need air conditioning. We’ve got to get a fan in here.” 

A pang went through Ennis at that. Jack’s house in Amarillo’d had full house AC. “I ain’t never been able to sleep with a fan blowing on me.”

Jack turned to look down at him. “Then we’ll set it to blow on me! Jesus.” 

“How you gonna feel it when you’ve always got a cover on you? That don’t make any—”

“Hey, who’s in this body, you or me?”

“Tonight, just you, but I’m hoping tomorrow….”

It seemed Jack couldn’t help the short laugh that came out of him then. He stared down at Ennis with a small Jack-smile that had more than a little of other feelings in it too, not all of them good, and then sort of flowed over him, like a wave released all of a sudden. He took Ennis’s lips in a kiss pretty damn definite. 

“Mmmm.”

But the wave spent itself on the beach, losing power, and disappearing completely. Jack rolled away. He took up his spot on the pillow, staring straight up with his arm flung over his forehead. Ennis gave him time. 

“Bobby’s why I couldn’t get home last night. I saw him maybe two or three hours the whole time, and no way I was going to leave with just that. I went in and woke him up.”

“He had to be woke up at one o’clock in the afternoon? Damn, my mama would have thought I was dead if I’d done that.”

“Yeah, me too. I took him out bowling. He had a youth group meeting from church at five, and after that the two of us went out to dinner.” Jack sounded like maybe he’d walked all the way home from Texas, all worn out. “I sat across from him in the old diner on Main Street, kept looking at how he was talking pretty easy with me, you know, comfortable, and I kept thinking that the next time I saw him, it was likely he’d know.” Jack rubbed his forehead all over. “About his dad being…about me being this way. Could be that’s going to be hard on him.” 

Ennis thought maybe it was gonna be hard on Jack too. When he’d told Junior, and then Jenny a couple months after that, it hadn’t been any picnic. And they were girls. Boys and being queer, that was a whole other ballgame.

“How’d he take it, the dinner and all?”

“That’s not the point. The point’s how’s he going to be later on? I haven’t helped things much, not staying in touch like I should have. I was hoping over the weekend he’d be reminded of what we’ve got, or what we used to have, father and son. You know, playing basketball the way we used to, and how I always went to hear him play in the band. Even in middle school when, let me tell you, those kids weren’t a treat to hear. I thought to give him a good memory to help tide him over the hard time he might have adjusting to the facts.” Jack turned his head on the pillow and looked over at Ennis. “The facts of me and you.” 

“I guess there’s no chance he’s like Lureen and figured it out mostly?”

“That boy doesn’t have a clue.” The look on Jack’s face was bleak as a dead possum on the road. “Look, I don’t want to think about it anymore. I guess it’ll work out somehow. You ready to sleep again? It’s only three o’clock.” 

He didn’t wait for Ennis to answer and instead reached to shut off the light. In the sudden darkness Ennis heard him pulling up the sheet. 

Ennis thought to roll toward him, so they could fall asleep close, but the summer heat didn’t make that seem like a good idea. He stayed where he was. Jack had different ideas, cause there was a shove against his shoulder. 

“Would you roll over? You sleep most of your life on your side, now tonight you decide to stay flat on your back? Come on.”

It seemed all part of this confusing night. Over Ennis went, and a couple seconds later Jack was pressed up behind him, breath gusting against his spine. That felt good. Familiar, and Ennis needed familiar. When Jack’s hand came over his waist, Ennis took it and put their fingers together again, cause he figured Jack needed it. 

Seemed he was right about that. A minute later there was pressure on his shoulder blade, Jack laying the side of his face on a resting spot. 

“Ennis?”

“Yeah?” 

“How come you’re not asleep?”

“Cause you’re still talking.”

“Lureen wasn’t so bad all the time.” 

“Okay.” 

“We talked Saturday night.”

“I ain’t surprised to hear that.”

“We sat on this sofa we’ve got in the front living room. We went to Dallas a few years back, picked it out at one of their big furniture stores, and had it shipped in.”

Jack’s voice sounded thin, like there was a whole lot more going on inside besides what he was saying.

“She’s always loved that couch. She wouldn’t let hardly anybody sit on it, but now she says it doesn’t matter anymore.”

It seemed this thing with Lureen dying was painting a picture of Jack’s life that Ennis didn’t really want to see, fine furniture and traveling to the kind of large city Ennis wanted no part of. He wished Jack would stay quiet and go to sleep. Wished the whole world would stop thinking being queer was so bad so they could live in peace, but that wasn’t gonna happen either. Ennis turned over onto his other side. His man was a smudge of dark against the white pillow, but he knew the troubled look that must be on his face. 

Ennis reached out and ran his fingers through Jack’s hair, then settled on the side of his neck. One of Jack’s hands came to rest flat against his chest. 

“What else she say?”

“She wants to travel. All those years I lived with that woman, and I didn’t know she wanted that as much as it seems she does. But she doesn’t feel like she can go hardly anywhere, because she’s so afraid she’ll bring on her last days sooner.” Jack’s fingers against him curled into a fist, and he didn’t sound too steady. “Ennis, it was awful hard to hold her while she cried, hearing about how she’s afraid.” 

Ennis rubbed his thumb slow and steady against Jack’s skin, went up to his jawline, and traced that too. “Good of you to listen to her,” he said quiet. “Your Lureen, she’s a strong woman even so.”

“I couldn’t do a thing for her except listen and shop for her groceries.”

“You did that.” 

“She wants to visit San Antonio next weekend. That’s as far as she feels she can go. Said she always wanted to have a love affair in Paris, but if she can’t have that, at least she can go to San Antonio, since it’s a good city for lovers.” 

He couldn’t help it, that raised up worry. It had crossed his mind that maybe Lureen would want a man one last time. That she’d asked Jack to do her that favor this past weekend. Wouldn’t that be natural, knowing she was gonna die, wanting some sex and maybe even love one final time? But it made him crazy to think of it, his Jack with anybody else—and after that damn dream, he sure had been thinking of it.

Jack had got used to having sex with all different people all those years, including Lureen, but his life with just him and Ennis in New Mexico wasn’t like that anymore. This past day, at the ranch, at the horse sale, Ennis had feared that going back to Childress with things the way they were might’ve brought back old habits. Bad habits. 

Maybe it’d happened with Lureen, maybe it hadn’t, and there was no telling with who else…. But that was bad on him, thinking like that, wasn’t it? Jack wouldn’t…. He knew Jack wouldn’t. It wasn’t like Ennis was really thinking it’d happened, cause he wasn’t. But no way in hell would he ask outright to make sure, cause it was better not to know these things. 

Ennis cleared his throat, like he was swallowing those thoughts and the craziness too, so Jack wouldn’t know any of it had been in his mind. “Good city for lovers? Why does she think that about San Antonio? That’s where the Alamo is, ain’t it? Nothing loverlike about that.” 

“I don’t know. I guess because that’s where lots of people go on their honeymoon. Or people go there for a good time, forgetting cares at home. It’s a good-times city.” 

It would have been better if the light was still on. He wished he could see Jack’s face, those eyes that told tales. 

“So, she cry all that night?” 

“No, she fell asleep right there on her dream sofa after a while.”

“And you said you were holding her?”

“Yeah.” Then Jack’s voice got sharp real fast. It seemed he’d caught on. “You don’t have anything to worry about, though, because it’s not women I want.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes you did. Listen….” Jack’s words came at him in the black night. “You might as well know, I saw Randy over the weekend. My godforsaken fucking weekend, and that was part of it.”

Saw him? What the hell did Jack mean by that? Fuck. Ennis pulled back so they weren’t touching any more. “I don’t want to hear anything about him.”

“Yes, you do, that’s why you were asking me last night on the phone if I’d—”

“No, I wasn’t,” he said for sure. “I didn’t mean that, and you keep your thoughts about that goddamned fucker to yourself. He’s past.”

“Yeah, he is past, but that doesn’t mean—”

“Don’t push me, Jack.”

“Hell, you’re pushing me all the time.”

“If there’s an expert in pushing round here, I know who he is. The way I am, that ain’t never enough for you.” He stopped right there. It would be best if he kept his mouth shut. Ennis blew out air and tried to let go of the hurt that nagged at him now and then. “I don’t want to fight right now.”

“I’m not the one fighting, I’m just talking.” 

“It’s the middle of the night, for Christ’s sake. Time for sleeping.” 

“Suits me.” 

“Okay then. Let’s sleep.” Ennis lifted up, turned his pillow over to where it’d be cooler, and beat on it a couple times until it was smooth the way he liked it. Put his head down. Remembered why he’d been listening and felt like maybe he’d done a half-assed job there. No wonder. Jack hadn’t made it easy, not with the way he’d gone on about horses and laundry and crap. Sometimes there was no satisfying the man. 

A rustle against the bedclothes as Jack moved toward him. “Come on, roll over.”

He settled back the way they’d been a couple minutes before, and it surprised him that he felt some relief when Jack’s hand took up his place around him again. “At least you’re home now,” Ennis muttered into the dark. 

“Not for too long. I’m going back to Childress the end of the month.”

Ennis closed his eyes. Fuck.

*****

When Ennis took the Ram along their drive on Thursday evening, careful to steer around the pothole, the F-150 was already parked, and a rake and hedge clippers were leaning against the side of the house. He didn’t even know that they owned a pair of clippers. When he pulled himself out of the truck and got closer, he saw they were brand new with the tag still on. He took his hat off and ran his fingers through his hair. Jack had been busy the last few nights, like a squirrel putting in food for the winter. Well, the house and grounds were in need of the attention, and if he wanted to do that stuff, Ennis wouldn’t complain. He figured there was some farm supply store in Cimarron that had got Jack’s trade at lunchtime.

The smell of something good cooking suddenly hit him, coming through the screen door that Jack had found in the shed and put up the night before. Damn the man. That meant Ennis wouldn’t get that down-time in the kitchen he liked, the bridge between one job and the next, and he wouldn’t have the quiet while Jack wasn’t there yet either. Well, Ennis wouldn’t say what was mean-spirited and sort of girly too, and whatever was on the stove did tickle his nose in all the best ways. Ennis put his hand on the door handle and pulled it open. 

Jack was looking about as happy as a kid on his birthday, standing with the phone against his ear and a spoon in his hand, the phone cord stretched halfway across the room as he stirred something in a pan. 

“I can’t believe they give signing bonuses to coaches, though I bet you know how to spend it,” Jack said. “You going to get that sports car you were talking about? Hold on, Ennis just got home.” He turned to Ennis without bothering to put his hand over the receiver.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” he said. Looking at him straight and speaking real steady, Jack said, “I’m talking to Gary.”

Ennis shrugged, cause it was better than acting the child and grabbing the phone from Jack’s hand to slam it down. Jack was a grown man. He’d talk to whoever he wanted to, he’d made that clear, including the high-educated, fine-dressed man with a good job that he’d used to let fuck him. The beanpole. So Ennis went into the bathroom and closed the door to piss and wash up. He watched the water swirl around and then go down the toilet, concentrating on that and nothing else, especially not on how glad Jack had sounded on the phone. 

By the time he went into the kitchen again, the phone was back where it belonged. Jack was over by the table, putting big spoonfuls of rice onto both their plates directly from the pot he held. 

He looked up as Ennis came out. There was a sort of pause, a few seconds like on the TV when the picture froze and there wasn’t any sound or action on the screen. But then Jack moved toward him at the same time as Ennis moved, and their after-a-long-day kiss was the same on both sides, meant for real. 

Okay.

“What’s this?” Ennis asked as he went over to the stove, cause he’d be damned if he’d say a word about the fucking coach. He wasn’t interested in losing any pool games this night. There was a mix of stuff in the pan, a little soupy with some peas floating around, but with big strips of beef mainly.

“Hold on a minute.” Jack used the electric opener on a can of cranberry sauce. “Here, put a spoon in this, would you?” 

Ennis obliged and set the can with the spoon sticking out of it on the table. Jack used both hands to dump the stewy stuff into the only big bowl they owned. It looked like that was all that’d been cooked, the beef and the rice, with the cranberries open. He went and got the loaf of bread and the margarine from the refrigerator and put them on the table too.

“Okay, so what is this?” he asked again as he sat down. Jack sat down too.

“Beef with Sour Cream, sort of a poor man’s beef stroganoff. I haven’t had this for maybe four, five years, since Lureen stopped cooking much. Here, take some.” 

Ennis mixed up the beef in the white sauce with the rice, though he’d never cared for rice too much, since he liked potatoes just fine, and forked some in. Chewed. Swallowed. 

“Not bad. This must have taken you a while to make.”

“Since I went in early this morning, I left early too.”

“That must mean Corliss wasn’t on the job today.”

“Must mean.”

“And you say Lureen used to cook this?”

“Yeah.” Jack took a taste, testing. “This isn’t quite right from what I remember, but it’s close. Maybe if I put more sour cream in.” 

“I'll get it.” Ennis went to the refrigerator and found a container of the stuff, that he considered fit mainly for fancy dinners at holiday time. 

“When I was in Childress on Saturday night,” Jack said while he spooned a lot of it right on his plate, “I didn’t have anything else to do with Lureen asleep and Bobby not home. Since I didn’t especially want to parade around town, I started rooting around the kitchen. I found where Lureen keeps her recipes and copied down some of my favorites. You’ve been doing a lot of the cooking, so I thought it was my turn.”

“You saying something about my cooking, boy?”

“I’m saying you’ve got a good hand in the kitchen, which I sure didn’t expect from a scarecrow, but this isn’t as hard as it looks. We’re feeding ourselves fine. Want some more sour cream to mix in?”

“Nope, this is pretty good the way it is. What other recipes did you bring back?”

Jack shook his head. “I think you’ll have to wait and see.” 

It was hard to keep the mad on with good food provided and Jack obviously trying to do something in a positive way, even though Ennis would have preferred him not doing it. He kept his mouth quiet on that subject. He considered asking what kind of sports car the coach liked, but he stopped himself from that too. The answer was probably anything that would help impress gay men he was trying to pick up, since the coach was on the prowl again, his big thing with Jeffrey hitting the skids. Instead Ennis asked about how thing had been at the feedlot that day. 

By the time they were finished, there was not much rice left and none at all of the near pound of meat that Jack said he’d cooked. Ennis pushed back from the table and started picking up the dishes. 

“You gonna do some outdoor trimming tonight?” he asked as he rinsed the rice down the drain where the garbage disposal could grind it up. That was something he’d had to get used to, since no place he’d lived before had come equipped. When he shut off the disposal, the sound of a truck moving down the drive came to his ears. Jack came over to look out the window with him. 

“Shit,” Jack said, worried. “Looks like we’ve got company. Wonder who…. It’s Morgan!”

Ennis turned around and wiped his hands on a cloth. “You don’t say.”

Jack threw him a look. “You fucker, you knew he was coming.” 

“I figured maybe seeing a friend might brighten your disposition, Twist, the way you’ve been around here. So I called him.”

“The hell you did. He’s here to look at Janice’s horse, isn’t he?”

Ennis shrugged. “Either way, you get to talk to him.” 

Jack went outside to say howdy, and Ennis moved over to the window to watch as they shook hands. Jack didn’t look like he minded a third person intruding on their evening. He looked like he was greeting a real good friend he hadn’t seen for a while, sort of like the way Ennis’s dad and his friend Jim Schumacher had been. After the accident on the curve, there’d been a while when him and K.E. had thought for sure that they’d be taken in by the Schumachers, but nothing ever happened in that direction. But their dad and his friend Jim, they were good buddies, always helping each other out. He expected that’s the way Jack and Morgan were, though he’d not realized it when he’d first met Morgan. Jack, he’d lived a different life than Ennis had. There were friends to be run into. To want Ennis to be okay with. 

The sound of Jack’s voice came to him through the screen. He was standing real easy, hip cocked to the side the way he’d done when a young man and Ennis hadn’t been able to stop sneaking glances at him. Jack looked real happy, like he didn’t have a care in the world, for the second time since Ennis had come home.

He backed away from the window.

At least there wasn’t a need for any explaining that night, he told himself as he went back to cleaning up from dinner. He was getting more than a little weary of that. He could easily live with not-explaining to anybody else for the rest of his life. Morgan knew all about Jack and his ways, which meant he knew about Ennis and his ways too.

But he was a customer. Ennis hoped to make some money from him, assuming he gave the okay on the gray. It could be Morgan wouldn’t, and Ennis would be stuck with a horse out of his league. 

He finished wiping off the table and then flicked a look around the rest of the kitchen, the front room, and the laundry room, which wasn’t really a room so much as it was a big open space to walk through. Not much of anything was around, with nothing to show of him and Jack together. Though Ennis wasn’t sure what a sign of that was, but whatever that might be, he didn’t want it to show. He wanted to keep this business-like. If he walked into Gary Shelborne’s house, wherever the hell he lived, someplace fancy he bet, would there be something there that would jump up to tell that the coach liked men and not women? Ennis looked around again, his brow wrinkling, cause it all looked normal to him, and he wasn’t sure what he should think about changing. But it didn’t matter, cause the man who’d come to see about a horse was walking in now.

The screen door squeaked open and Ennis stood in the middle of the kitchen, suddenly feeling like a cigar store Indian on display, holding up a sign that said Queer Horse Trainer Right Here, Leave Your Money With Him. As if he had some right to ask anybody to trust him when he was just feeling his way in the dark. What did he think he was doing? He was just a no-account ranch—

Morgan stood before him, swiped off his hat, and held out a hand. “Hello, Ennis.”

He forced himself to take a step forward. “How you doing.” Morgan’s shake was a good one, as he’d noted before. His face was even redder than the other two times they’d met. Likely he’d been out in the sun too long for his fair coloring. He wasn’t gussied up like he’d been at the art gallery. Jack in his nice work pants was dressed smarter than him.

“Good, I’m good.” Morgan turned to Jack. “I pulled the wool over Janice’s eyes tonight about where I was going.”

“What’d you tell her?” 

“That I was going to talk to a potential client about a commission.”

Ennis’s hands had found their way into his pockets. “She don’t…she doesn’t know about the horse yet?” he asked.

Morgan shook his head. “Not yet. I’m waiting for the right time.” He threw a look around the kitchen. “It looks like a nice place here.”

Ennis knew he was talking visitor-polite bullshit, but he nodded. “It’s okay.”

“The acreage is just right for what Ennis is doing,” Jack chipped in. He was over by the refrigerator. “Even if the house isn’t much, we’re doing pretty well here. Aren’t we, Ennis?”

“Uh, yeah.” What the hell was Jack doing, talking about this _we_ business? No need to shove it in the man’s face.

“Morgan, you want a beer?” 

Morgan shook his head. “No thanks, Jack, not now. Maybe later.”

He doubted Morgan wanted to stand there enjoying the kitchen either, and Ennis was ready to get down to brass tacks. “I expect you’d like to see the horse.”

“I sure would. Sounds like you’ve bought a good one.” 

“I had a hard time finding what I had in mind, but this one should suit. Let’s go.”

Ennis got his hat from the hook by the door and was outside with the sun beating down on him before he realized both of them were following. Jack returned his look with one just as strong. 

“You don’t mind me coming along, right?”

He wasn’t gonna make a fuss and show Morgan how the queers weren’t exactly on the same page. It wasn’t good business sense to argue in front of a paying customer, but then again it wasn’t good business sense to have your queer boyfriend tagging along either. 

“Fine.”

The pinto he was still keeping in the paddock, cause there was some doubt whether the bag of bones was even gonna make it through the week. Ennis was feeding him carefully, not too much and not too rich, for he needed special handling, that was for sure. He’d turned the gray out into the field with the others on Wednesday evening, and he’d seen right away that he was one strong-minded horse, set on having his space and things his way. Him and Fancy were two of a kind. It would take a while for them to sort out who was king of the hill. 

With Jack and Morgan trailing behind, talking on how sales at the art gallery were doing— _I’m grateful for whatever exposure I can get because my more realistic style isn’t in vogue right now. The gallery owner wants me to branch out but I think I’ll stick to the medium I’m familiar with_ —Ennis led the way down the yard and past the stable, over to the right where the horses were clumped under one of the few shade trees. He checked the dead trunk and branches where the vultures lived across the field, but it was too early for any to be in sight.

The three of them stopped by the wire fence. Ennis felt no need to say anything, cause Morgan had eyes. The gray stood with weight off one of his back legs, swishing his tail and looking innocent, but in a good position for Morgan to see him. Jigger and Dawn were head to tail, obliging each other by keeping the flies out of each other’s faces, and Fancy was off to the side, grazing. 

“Looks good,” Morgan said right away. “Though I’m no judge of horses. That way he’s standing, that doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with his leg, does it?” 

Jack answered before Ennis could open his mouth. “Nope, that’s something lots of horses do when they’re relaxed.” 

“I wouldn’t have bought him if there was something wrong,” Ennis said, conscious that how Morgan liked this horse was how he would judge the man who’d bought him. “I was going for something real fine for your wife.”

Morgan held up his hands. “I’m sure. It goes to show how little I know.” 

“I think Janice will like him,” Jack put in. “The ladies like gray horses, and this one’s a looker. I know Lureen always favored grays. And Dottie Baxter, remember her?”

“Right, she rode that big stallion of hers in the Fourth of July parade until they both got too old for it. That last time you had to climb off the float and help her when it looked like she was going to fall off.”

“Yep,” Jack nodded, “that made front page news in the _Childress Chronicle._ L.D. was mad that the caption of the picture didn’t mention the float was from Newsome Farm Equipment.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. At the next Lions Club meeting he had it out with the editor.”

“I would have liked to see that.”

Jack grinned. “Sparks flew.” 

“Whatever happened to Stackhouse, anyway, do you know?”

“He’s down in Florida with his daughter. Doing okay from what I last heard.”

Before Jack and Morgan could haul out the whole fucking history of their lives in Texas, Ennis asked, “You want to see this horse move?”

Morgan turned back to him with the pleasure of good memories lighting up his face. “Sure. That’s a good idea.”

“I won’t ride him, just walk him around for you to see.”

A little oats in a pan caught the horse’s attention so Ennis was able to clip a lead rein to his halter. He passed the line over the muzzle to give extra control, cause he didn’t want this horse to act up so Morgan would get scared off the buy. Even with that the horse skittered to the side, his feet dancing, but that showed off his spirit, and Ennis figured Morgan for a man to appreciate some of that. He clucked and trailed one hand down the horse’s backbone to his hip, and with some pressure applied there got the gray to walk along with him. 

Ennis took him in big circles over the uneven ground in the field, making sure the gray’s head stayed up and he looked alert to eyes that were checking him out. He had a smooth gait with fine, sloping shoulders, and Ennis would bet money that he was mostly Quarter Horse. The bidding on him Monday night had been lively. If Morgan gave the okay, he’d have a horse worth twice as much as what had been paid, mainly cause it’d come from an out-of-the-way ranch sale that Ennis had taken the trouble to go to. Though Morgan wouldn’t know that unless he was told.

After a minute or two of circling, he heard Jack’s voice, and then Morgan answering him, and low murmuring kept going on after that. Ennis wasn’t even sure they were looking at the horse any more. He glanced up and saw he was right, cause Morgan was staring at Jack with his mouth open like he’d been surprised. 

Ennis looked down at the tips of his worn-out work boots as him and the horse, they kept walking. 

But he felt dumb walking for no reason, so after two more circles, each one smaller than the one before, Ennis brought the gray back. 

As he got closer, Jack said, “Bobby’ll stay with the Montcriefs until he graduates, but we’ll have him here over the holidays.” 

“That’s a great idea, letting him stay in town.”

“Lureen thought of it, arranged it all. I haven’t even talked to them yet.” 

“It’s the best— Ennis, sorry I got distracted. I hadn’t known about Lureen’s condition. I’m awfully sorry about it.” 

“Yeah, well, I just met her the once,” Ennis said, trying to hold the gray steady though he was more interested in getting his head down to some of the sweet-smelling grass. “What do you think, are you okay with this horse?”

“What? Oh, right. The only thing is, I had hoped to give the horse to Janice for an anniversary present. I’m not sure you can get this one fully trained in time for that.”

Shit. Morgan hadn’t mentioned that there was some deadline attached to what he wanted from Ennis. He shortened his hold on the lead rein. “When’s that?”

“Sunday, August twenty-sixth. It’s, what, the ninth today? A little over two weeks from now. To tell you the truth, I’d about given up on the idea when you called. I thought I’d have to come up with another gift.”

Ennis looked at the horse, and it seemed the horse looked back at him with some sort of challenge. 

“I can do that,” Ennis said. 

Jack scuffed his fine, polished shoe in the dirt but made no sound.

“I don’t want you to rush the process if it’s not advisable. The main thing is to have a safe ride for her.”

“If he isn’t suited, I’ll find some other one that is. But he’s not mean-spirited. He just hasn’t been paid attention to for a while. I think two weeks will have him ready.”

It chapped Ennis something fierce when Morgan turned to Jack. “You’ve had horses, Jack, what do you think?”

Jack was leaning his elbows on a fencepost and took a couple heartbeats to answer. “Ennis is a good horseman,” he said, looking off at where Fancy had wandered away down the field. “He knows what he’s doing.” 

“Oh, I know that. I wouldn’t be dealing with him without that recommendation you gave me over the phone a while ago. What I mean is, do you think Janice might be scared by a horse this spirited? You know her where Ennis doesn’t.” 

Jack stood up straight. He aimed a look over the fence to where Ennis was standing with the gray. Ennis met his eyes, but their gaze couldn’t hold, and Jack’s attention slipped away to the side. “It’s hard to tell. Janice might be okay with him or she might not. Everybody’s different.” 

The gray snorted, tossing his head and trying to back away from the three of them, which was about what Ennis felt like doing at the moment. He unsnapped the lead and gave him a shove to set him free. Ennis stood back and watched him kick up his heels and then go trotting down the field toward where Fancy was cropping the grass again.

He kept standing there, looking, until behind him Morgan said, “Okay. Let’s give this a try. Ennis, let’s go back to the house and I’ll write you a check for your commission and for three weeks of board with the training.”

*****

Ennis was sitting up in bed with his glasses on his nose, reading the latest issue of _U.S. News and World Reports,_ when Jack came home from the night spent out with Morgan. The check had been in his hands when Morgan invited them both out for a drink down at one of the fancy bars in Angel Fire. Jack had jumped at the chance, despite that rake and clippers waiting to be used. Ennis had said he had work to do, but that Morgan and Jack should go on without him. 

Jack stood by his side of the bed and stripped off all his clothes, throwing them in the corner of the room. That was a habit of his. He let them pile up for a while until he dumped them in the hamper. He claimed he wasn’t a slob like Ennis was, that his pile was neat. He climbed under the sheet next to Ennis and flopped onto his back. “Are you going to read for a while or put out the light so I can get some sleep?” 

Ennis killed the light and slid down to the mattress. Jack smelled of the whiskey he must have indulged in with Morgan. Ennis smelled of horse and sweat. He’d worked with the gray the whole evening long, even past sundown. He was tired.

It was mighty quiet, except maybe inside his head. 

“Morgan gave us an invitation.”

It was a surprise to actually hear Jack’s voice for real and not in his memory, his so-called partner saying _Janice might be okay with him or she might not._

“Oh, yeah?”

“Morgan and Janice are going to the big auto show in Taos this Saturday. He wants the two of us to come along, then afterward have dinner together.” 

Jack and Morgan, they had a lot to talk about. 

“You know I can’t.”

“You could. We haven’t been out together for more than a month. Except for with Lureen, and I don’t count that.” 

“Me neither.”

“So, how about it?”

“I can’t give up a weekend day like that, Jack. A good working day.”

“And you’ve got a lot to work to do now.”

“You go with them.” 

It wasn’t hard to know Jack was real disappointed. The feeling was heavy, coming over Ennis like a weight on his chest even though it wasn’t him that was feeling so bad. “Okay, I will,” Jack said after they both spent a while just breathing.

“Fine.” That was the way it was gonna have to be.

“How about you do what you have to do in the afternoon and then join us for dinner in town later?”

“You don’t want me butting in like that.”

“You’re wrong. I do.”

It was nearly impossible for him to imagine it anyway, even if he was inclined to give Jack what he wanted this night, which he wasn’t. The two queers out on the town along with a normal couple, man and woman? Even if back in Fort Worth Morgan had said him and his wife were on the liberal side of things, Ennis didn’t… didn’t want to be used that way. It was different for Jack, he knew them personally. 

“You go eat with them, no need to drag me along.” 

“Ennis….”

That was all Jack said until a long time later Ennis fell asleep.

*****

The gray was doing real good by the time Ennis was done working with him through the weekend, and he figured if he kept on a tight schedule with the horse, he would be ready for the anniversary date that Morgan had given him. The pinto was still dragging his head in the paddock, though. It could be that his spirit was broken. But on the off chance that wasn’t the problem, after dinner on Monday Ennis went looking for a way to get different feed to build the horse up. 

“Hey, Jack,” he called from the back room, “have you seen that Finish Line catalog?”

“I’ve got no idea. That’s your stuff, not mine,” Jack called back. 

Jack was putting the kitchen to rights before he went outside and did whatever the hell he was gonna do that night. Going to Childress had pushed a button inside the man that Ennis didn’t understand, cause a week after coming home it was still do this and do that, from spraying the outside of the house with the hose, getting down all the cobwebs, to filling in the pothole out by the road. He hadn’t asked Jack what was going on, and Jack hadn’t told him. 

Ennis found the catalog at the bottom of the stack of magazines. He had pulled his glasses out from his shirt pocket and started to thumb through it when the phone rang.

Without thinking much about it, he walked over to get it from the little table that they’d put next to the old chair, but before he got close he heard Jack pick it up in the kitchen and say “Hello?”

The house wasn’t all that big, really only a little bigger than Ennis’s old shack. It wasn’t hard to stop in the middle of the room and hear what else Jack said.

“No, it’s not. Let me get h—”

“Can I ask who’s calling?”

“Oh. Hold on, Ennis’ll be right there.” 

There was the sound of the phone being put down on the counter and then footsteps as Jack walked through the laundry room. He showed up in the doorway and stood there with his arms folded across his chest and his chin sticking out. 

“Ennis?” 

This was trouble. “There ain’t nobody else here. Who’s on the phone?”

“It’s Mark O’Hara asking for you.”

His stomach tightened like somebody had punched him. He should have known, should have known, should have got that phone before Jack’d had the chance. “Damn it,” he swore low. “You sonuvabitch. Why the hell did you—”

Jack dropped his hands to his sides and took a step forward, his eyes flashing. “Might’ve been Bobby calling, did that ever occur to you?”

“The hell with Bobby, this is busi—”

Jack didn’t let him talk. “O’Hara’s waiting, so you’d better pick up if you’re so almighty concerned about business.” He showed Ennis his back and disappeared.

Ennis stood there for half a minute, forcing his breathing back to even, and then he went over and picked up the phone. “Hello?” He stayed on his feet, cause he had a feeling he’d better not relax. 

There was a _click_ as the kitchen phone was put down. “Is that you, Del Mar?”

He recognized O’Hara’s voice, quaver and all. The question was whether the old man had recognized Jack’s voice. Ennis dug his free hand into his pocket. “Yep.”

Seconds passed in a noticeable silence. Then, “I thought I’d check in and see how the filly’s doing. You’ve had her almost a month, and I really expected you to call me with a report by now. I can’t see pouring much more money into her if you can’t show me some real improvement.” 

The man expected Ennis to say something now, but he’d never thought the horse business would include people handling too. First Morgan and now O’Hara. If he kept on taking in animals to train, he could see a long line of complaining customers in the future. Maybe goddamned Jack Twist knew how to handle folks like that, but he sure didn’t. 

The sound of the screen door opening and then banging shut came to him, and probably to O’Hara too. Ennis closed his eyes. 

“Uh, she’s doing real good.”

“How good?” O’Hara barked. “Come on, man, give me details. Is my granddaughter going to be able to ride the horse sometime this century?”

“She’s calmed some, though she’ll never be for a nervous rider cause she’s got so much spirit.”

“Have you put a saddle on her?”

“I did that the first week. Last Wednesday I rode her up into the hills for a couple hours.” The old man didn’t need to know that his palomino hadn’t been first on the list the last little while. Ennis had barely done more with Fancy than brush her down and turn her out since he’d started working with Morgan’s horse. And O’Hara didn’t need to know about how he’d been bucked off.

“Then you’ve been riding her. That’s good.” O’Hara sounded calmed down some.

“Not that she’s ready yet.” Ennis dug deeper into his pocket and found space to make a fist. 

“My little Margaret is a fine rider.”

“She still isn’t ready. I wouldn’t want to be responsible for giving your girl a horse that isn’t trained right yet. ”

“Well, how much more time do you think you need?”

“Uh….” He twisted his hand to see the fading bruise on his wrist. “It’s hard to tell. Another month, I’d say.” 

“And I’d say that you’re milking me for my money…if I didn’t know how wild that horse was when I turned her over to you. This is probably more than I should expect. You’re sure you’ve got her under saddle?”

That was the same as accusing him of a bald-faced lie. “I’m sure,” he said, biting the words off. 

“I’ll put a check in the mail for the next month.” 

“That’s fine.”

“It’s Ennis Del Mar, right? Is that last name one word or two?”

“Two.”

There was some scratching sound as O’Hara wrote that down. “If I weren’t going to California to visit my son, I’d want to come to your place and see with my own eyes, but I don’t have the time right now. Del Mar, who was that who answered the phone?”

He gripped the receiver so fiercely a pain went flashing up his arm. He wanted to hang up, but he couldn’t, he had the man’s horse. “That was my friend, Jack.” 

“Jack, eh?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he the same Jack I met at the auction, where we talked about Fancy?”

“Yeah.” 

“You two must be very close friends.” 

“I suppose.” 

“The way he answered the phone, it sounded like he owned the place.”

Fuck. Ennis pinched the bridge of his nose. What the hell should he— Fuck, fuck, he shouldn’t have said it was Jack, should say now _no way, he doesn’t own anything, not this house, not me either, it’s just me here, all alone…._

“On the other hand, Buckminster thinks highly of you, and you say you’ve got my horse going in the right direction.”

It took everything he had to say, “Uh-huh.”

“We’ll see about that, won’t we? I’m not as young as I used to be. The chestnut I outbid you for in Taos could use some finishing, but she won’t be getting it from me. I’ve been thinking of turning her over to you, but I’ll have to think twice about that now.”

Ennis’s tongue was a piece of wood in his mouth. He was lost in this kind of fighting with words. There were things O’Hara was saying but not really saying, and he had no idea how to say the right thing back when nothing had been said in the first place.

 _Bang!_ What the hell? Ennis winced and looked overhead, where the sound had come from. Maybe a bird had landed hard on the roof? But the noise had loosened his tongue. “You can judge on the palomino,” he managed to get out. “If you like what I do with her.” 

_Bang! Bang!_

“There are other things a man can like or not like, and one of those is two men…. I never thought I’d run into that here in the valley. Taos is the place for the likes of you. Well, you’ve got my granddaughter’s horse; let’s leave it at that. We’ll see.”

The old man hung up without saying anything more. Ennis stood there, the phone to his ear, listening to the thumps over his head but feeling like the earth under him had dropped down a hundred feet all at once. 

“Hell,” he muttered under his breath. He felt like dog shit. Worse, dog shit that O’Hara had scraped off his shoes. The lowest of the low. Why did it have to happen that way? What cause did that damn horse owner have to talk to him like that? _Things a man can like or not like…._ Damn, O’Hara knew. He knew the way Morgan knew and BJ knew, though there wasn’t any good-for-the-queers in him. 

Ennis slammed the receiver down. He didn’t want anybody to know! Nobody! It wasn’t anybody’s goddamned fucking business! It was his life, he didn’t need understanding or sympathy or liberal leanings, he didn’t need anything! He just needed to be left alone! 

Red heat raced down his arms into his hands, curled tight into fighting form, no different from when Alma had said her piece over Thanksgiving. “Fuck!” he hollered, and he rammed his fist against the cheap paneling on the wall. It splintered. He was glad to see it broken, no good, just like him. He pounded it again to see the splits in the wood grow wider.

Ennis brought his aching hand up to his mouth and pressed it against his lips as if that might keep all this bad feeling inside. Smelled blood. Blinked fast. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Goddamnit, Jack.”

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

He lifted his head and stabbed his gaze overhead. “You’re always making noise!” he screamed up. “Jack Fucking Twist! Where the hell are you?”

He rushed out of the house like a storm coming down from the hills, turned around, and looked up at the roof. Couldn’t see anything, but he could hear the noise still. Almost ran around to the back side of the house, where there was a ladder propped up against the wall, what Jack had used to climb up. There he was, crouched down on his knees to keep his balance against the slope, with a hammer in hand and a nail in his mouth, banging. 

He stopped when he saw Ennis and took the nail from between his teeth.

“I heard you hollering,” Jack said, loud enough for his words to reach the ground, real calm. “I’m right here, Ennis. All you had to do was look for me. Isn’t that always the way it’s been?”

Ennis was spitting mad. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled up.

“I am making sure we have a roof over our heads when the winds blow. What do you think I’m doing, dancing up here for my health?”

“You’re gonna fall off and break your neck.” 

“Good, then you won’t have anybody to interfere with your business by answering the phone.”

Ennis breathed heavily. “Damn right. Why’d you do that, Jack?”

“What, why’d I answer the phone?” 

Jack was so damn not-rattled, like he was some school teacher and Ennis was the kid sitting at the desk, and if he’d been in reach Ennis would have wrapped his hands around his neck and strangled him. “You know that’s what I mean! Why’d you—”

“Last I checked I live here too.”

“You knew it might be O’Hara calling. I can’t have you—”

“That’s right, I’ve got to have your life and what’s going on with you in the front of my mind all the time. And here I thought it might be a two-way street we’d get going.” Like it was suddenly weighing about a thousand pounds, Jack put the hammer down. He slid backwards until he was sitting on the roof with his legs spread wide in front of him. “I suppose O’Hara said something.” 

“No, he wanted to talk about the weather. You’re damn right he said something!” 

“Did he take away Fancy?”

Ennis looked down at the house foundation, where the concrete faded into the ground. “Not yet.” 

“Ennis, I can’t read your lips from up here when you’re searching for hell. What’d you say?”

“I said,” he pushed out through his teeth grinding together, “not yet.” He lifted his head, defiantly, and squinted up through slanting sunlight to that man on the roof. “Not yet.”

“Well, that’s something. Listen, we’ve got to get you a separate phone line.” 

“What?” Jack might as well have said he should tunnel through the earth with his bare hands to get to China. Folks like him didn’t have two phone numbers. Folks like him were lucky to have one. There’d been some lean years when he’d made do without any phone at all.

“If you’re serious about the horses, we’ve got to get you a business line, since you’re so fucking ashamed to be living with me. Because I sure as hell,” all of a sudden Jack’s voice got loud and mad, “am not going to tiptoe around whenever the phone rings in my own house.”

“We don’t need an extra phone, that costs too much. All you’ve got to do is let me do the answer—”

“And when you’re done, for Christ’s sake go get yourself some business cards. And put your new telephone number on them too.”

“I told you, I ain’t gonna do that.”

“Fine, then you’ll have some explaining to do when folks call for horse trainer Ennis Del Mar and I’m the one who answers. And I know how you love explaining.” Jack took the hammer in hand and banged it against a shingle, no nail involved except the ones that were being pounded into Ennis’s head cause Jack wouldn’t see things his way. “Fuck.” Jack hammered again. “Fuck. This is us. This is me. You can’t pretend I’m not here.”

“Look, it ain’t like I want to pretend. It’s just that….” He wanted to ask Jack to come down to the ground where they could talk about this without hollering the words at each other and Ennis getting a crick in his neck. But asking would be like giving that round to Jack. And he would be damned before he climbed up on the roof, got on the same level as Jack, the fool, he was gonna slide off. “…it’s just that there ain’t no need for the horse business to get mixed up with you and me. See what I’m saying?”

“Ennis, listen to yourself. It can’t work that way.”

“Sure it can, if you’d—”

“Fine. To hell with it.” Jack got back onto his knees again and took a nail in hand. 

“Jack, it ain’t that I—”

Jack hammered the nail into place and said to him without looking, “Go tend to your horses, you’re losing daylight.” 

“You’re the one who caused all this, picking up when you shouldn’t have.”

“I’m the one caused all this when I sent you that postcard.”

Even though they were having some hard words, he couldn’t let that pass. Ennis went over to the base of the ladder, the closest he could get without climbing. He stretched his neck back to look up. “Maybe. But seems to me I sent you one back. Two of us, bud.” 

Jack looked down at him, the orange light glinting off his hair. He sighed. “That’s what I want you to remember.”

Ennis held Jack’s eyes for a while, until he couldn’t any more. He wasn’t comfortable, not with damn-Jack not seeing the problem with O’Hara, not with how they’d been rubbing against each other the wrong way since Jack had got home. This wasn’t good. Them being this separate made him feel like he was laying face down in the mud.

Ennis went off and lost himself in his chores at the stable, in the creak of the saddle leather being slung onto a horse, and in the curve of Fancy’s neck. He spent a long time up on her back in stillness, checking out the way the edges of the mountains looked picked out so strong by the sun going down. So strong: half the day’s air, half the bones of the earth. 

He went back to the house in pitch dark, long since time that Jack had come down from up on high, unless he was lying dead on the ground from a fall and Ennis didn’t know it yet. When he pushed open the door, though, there was Jack sitting at the table, a bottle of Jack Daniels in front of him, a glass held up to his lips. 

Just what Ennis had been thinking of. Jack looked over the top of the glass as he drank and Ennis came closer. 

“There enough there for two?” he asked as he sat down, on his chair in their kitchen. 

“Yeah.” 

Ennis stayed there for a while, watched Jack swallow some more, then heaved himself up and got something to drink from. He poured four fingers so he could catch up to where Jack was. 

After ten minutes, Jack said, “Hell of a day.”

“Sure was.” 

“You stink.” 

Ennis sniffed. “That’s you you’re smelling.” 

“I don’t think so.” Jack lifted his arm and took a whiff from underneath. “Or maybe not.” 

“You got those shingles done the way you want?”

“Pretty much so. Maybe I’ll do a little more tomorrow. How’s Morgan’s horse coming along?”

“I didn’t work with him today. I’ve got to get going on Fancy. O’Hara might take her away any time if I can’t show him she’s going along good.”

“Oh.” Jack rubbed his finger on the table. He seemed to be writing something there. “Fucking hot.”

“I heard on the radio it’s gonna get worse.” 

Jack held out his hand for the bottle. “Pass her over.” 

That’s the way it went for the next couple hours. They hadn’t shared whiskey together like that for a long time, maybe all the way back to the night when Jack had said he missed Ennis so much, even though that night Ennis had been sitting right next to him in plain sight. 

*****


	11. Fucked Up

_Lightning Flat was cups of his daddy’s spit left on the edge of the table, ready for a boy running through the house to knock over._

_Lightning Flat was his mama’s silent touch against his tears that said sorry, I’m sorry, but that never gave any way to make things better._

_Lightning Flat was the long hard winter after Brokeback, being confused because it hurt so fucking much to think about what he’d left behind. Learning, from the pain, that he loved._

_Lightning Flat was defeat time after time after time because, like the good son he wasn’t, he would go visit the folks after he watched Ennis’s broke-down truck drive away._

_Lightning Flat was secrets in plain view: what his daddy knew about Jack and his body’s needs that he hated, what he knew about his daddy’s heavy hand against his mama that he couldn’t stop, what his mama knew about the two shirts up in Jack’s closet._

_Lightning Flat was the last morning of a visit in spring, the very end of things. He sat drinking strong, grain-clogged coffee when he said I know a fellow down Childress. He’s a ranch foreman. Someday he’ll come with me on a visit. We’ll stay a while and whip this ranch into shape._

_Mama lifted her big eyes to him. That was all, because the words she would’ve had in some other way of living had flowed into him long ago, her only child. She looked so sad._

_Daddy said bullshit that’ll be the day._

_Jack pushed back from the table slowly like he didn’t care, like it wasn’t five hundred pounds of lost dreams that slowed him, like he wasn’t hollowed out inside. He went upstairs and stood in the door of the closet. He couldn’t see the blood-stained sleeve but he knew it was there, he knew what it guarded inside, and he knew what the shirts together meant. The boy, dreaming, who he used to be. The young man, hoping, who he used to be. The lover, loving, who he wanted so desperately to be._

_He couldn’t hope any more._

_Jack took a step into the closet, deeper into the secret-keeper._

_When he held the shirts in his arms, they smelled like nothing at all. It was his memory that told of the green-grass scent as he lay back among the wildflowers with that shy boy from Sage next to him. It was his memory that told of the brown earth that came to his nose when that boy shoved him face-first in the dirt and came into him from behind. It was his memory that told of the clean rushing water that flowed over them as they laughed in the stream._

_Randy favored Old Spice aftershave. When they were stripped naked and rolling around on a big, comfortable bed, when Randy’s cock rose high and he was breathing heavy, when Jack kissed him on the side of the neck under his ear, all those times were mixed up with Old Spice. It got on his lips, stinging. It was hard to get something that strong, that ordinary out of his mind, especially after one of their weekends on Lake Kemp. A laugh a minute, the fish really and truly biting, time away from Lureen and the farm equipment showroom, a handjob or a blowjob or a good fuck every morning and every night while they were away from their wives: What wasn’t there to like?_

_Ennis hadn’t ever in his life put on aftershave._

_Jack stood in the closet and breathed in what he’d never had. Ennis was what he said in a whisper, so low nobody else could’ve heard. Ennis hadn’t ever heard him. Into the cloth of the shirts brought up to his face he said I love you._

_He stood there a long time, but it could never be long enough._

_He should put these shirts back where they’d stayed for years. Or he should tell his mama to use them for one of the quilts she made sometimes or give them over to the church bazaar this summer._

_Because Ennis had said that he was nothing, he was nowhere. He had said he couldn’t stand it no more. What Jack had stood for years and years had finally cracked the great granite Ennis Del Mar, and now Jack was broken too._

_Randy had said they should get together when Jack came back to Texas, as soon as Lureen wouldn’t kick up a fuss, knock back some cool ones and put their feet up. Go fishing and…you know._

_Yeah, he knew._

_In the end, Jack stuffed the shirts into his bag. For a reminder, he told himself, of how fucked up one man could let himself get._

*****

The shirts were still mated on the same hanger, only they were hanging in a closet in Eagle Nest, in an old rent house where the master bedroom had but one small closet and no attached bathroom. But it was enough, more than enough. Jack’s clothes were on the left side of the closet and Ennis’s clothes on the right side, and the shirts marked the dividing line. 

Jack had thought he would die from happiness the day they’d moved into the house together. Of course he couldn’t let Ennis know that. He’d played it down and didn’t let the goofy grin that wanted to come out all the time stay on his face. He’d thought: this is it, I’m finally getting what I really need.

Trying with Ennis and failing…. It would kill him. 

Goddamnit, when would that man see sense? When would he step up to the plate and take his turn at bat? When would he listen to what Jack had to say? When would he understand?

*****

The Moreno Valley and all of northern New Mexico was in the grip of a heat wave. The air of the high plateau that normally protected Eagle Nest and Angel Fire from the worst of the summer instead baked as temperatures broke ninety, broke ninety-five, and threatened to break one hundred. The cattle in the care of Tulip Feedlot lowed morning, noon, and night, kicking up a racket that encouraged the big cats nearby to add their voices to the mix. Between the mooing and the roars from lions and tigers, it was hard for a person to get any damn thing done. Add in the fact that the air conditioning in the old repo that passed for an office hadn’t ever been much good anyway, and the fact that Jack Twist hadn’t got any in almost a week since it was too hot to screw, much less make love, and it was a wonder that he hadn’t exploded already. 

In just the time it took for him to hike from the double-wide down to the bunk manager’s office, sweat broke out on Jack’s face, and his short-sleeved gray Ralph Lauren shirt that Lureen had got him a month before he’d told her he wanted a divorce was stuck to his chest. He opened the door, and a fly buzzed past his ear. Even the insects knew enough to get out of the heat. 

The bunk manager was nowhere to be seen. He must be out with the feed patrol, damn it, checking on rations. Jack dropped off the sheets with the new, last-minute schedule that Marge had typed in a big hurry, and then he headed outside again. He looked up at the wild blue yonder, squinting against the sun that seemed twice as big as usual. It burned his eyes. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky; after all that rain, Mother Nature had turned stingy. Most sane people would be seeking the shade. He hoped that’s where Ennis was, that shithead, under the shade of a tree on the Buckminster ranch, or maybe hiding out in one of the stables they had there, even if Jack was condemned to walk around and melt like the wicked witch from _The Wizard of Oz._

At least Perez wasn’t all that far; once Jack went around the back he spotted him right away. He was with Corliss at one of the front pens that they’d cleared out because of the drainage problems, James in the white shirt and jeans he almost always wore, Corliss in black from hat down to boots, looking sharp. Jack’s eyes wandered over the slim hips set off by the black. Corliss looked like a coiled-up snake. 

They were talking like they didn’t want to be interrupted. Jack slowed his steps. Why was his luck so bad that he had to make this announcement in front of somebody else? The worst somebody else in his book. It always seemed to work out that way for him. But since he didn’t have much choice, he took himself over there, though nobody was moving all that fast in this heat. 

James was saying, intensely, like it really mattered, “…telling you, the last shipment wasn’t the weight we were promised it—”

Corliss cut him off as he looked over James’s broad shoulders and spotted Jack coming closer. “Let’s consult over the details later in my office. Jack, what brings you out here? Not enough sales leads to keep you busy?”

Some day in some unlikely future ,when he didn’t need a job and didn’t give a damn, Jack would answer a snub like that the way he wanted to answer it. For now he let it pass like he always had before. “I got a message for James he needs to know right now,” he said.

“Go ahead.”

He told himself that Corliss wasn’t smirking at him, but he felt like a good-for-nothing messenger boy anyway.

“That new Jefferson account? I don’t know how, but he read Friday, August 17 to be Thursday, August 16. He’s already had two hundred head picked up today.” 

The bunk manager looked over at Corliss as if he would have something to say about the change in schedule, but the big boss hardly ever got ruffled. Hell, he was barely even sweating, one of those guys who didn’t much care about temperature one way or the other, not like Jack at all. He did put his finger up to his mouth, though, like he was thinking, and then tapped his teeth. The boss’s eyes looked even darker in the bright summer light, aimed at Jack. 

Corliss asked, “Did you make that mistake with the contract, Jack? Put in the wrong date?”

Jack folded his lips over the wrong words and came out with the right ones instead, the ones that would keep him lower-level management at Tulip. “No, I double-checked it and—”

“I don’t have the time to review every word. I depend on you for such details. We’ve got a schedule, and it’s important that we keep to it.”

“I know, that’s why I came out here looking for—”

“How did you find out about it?”

What did Corliss think, he’d done all this deliberately to mess up the feedlot workings? “Jefferson just now called me to ask if he could stop by tomorrow morning first thing and make sure his stock was settled in.”

“I see. I imagine the rigs are on their way?”

“They’ll get here by two o’clock.”

Corliss exchanged a glance with the bunk manager. “Can we manage that?”

Under the shade of his white straw hat, James scratched at his chin. “If we postpone worming the Angus herd in the back. You know we’re short anyway because we’ve got men off on their summer vacations. I’ll have to pull Neil from the feeder truck.”

“Are the pens prepared for this group?” 

“Maybe by three o’clock I can get that done. I’ll round up the men and we’ll get started. But…” He threw Jack a glance and then settled on Corliss. “We’ve got the Cross Country rig coming in right after lunch, and I won’t have time to deal with him if I’m prepping for the Jefferson group. You’ll have to—”

“I can’t. I’ve got to go into Raton to consult with my pastor, as you should remember. Several of us are collaborating on a Wednesday night class on the seven deadly sins. I won’t be back until mid-afternoon.”

“I don’t think we should make Hugo wait.”

“I agree. Perhaps….” Corliss threw him a speculative glance. “Perhaps Jack here can do us a favor.”

“You know what I think of that.” 

Jack frowned, looking from one to the other and not liking being the third wheel in this conversation he wasn’t following. What, did James think that he wasn’t capable of dealing with some truck driver? Hell, he thought him and the bunk manager had always got on. 

James added, “Maybe Andy could—”

“You know I don’t want Andy involved in any way. No, I’ve been meaning to have a conversation with Jack. James, why don’t you get started with what you need to do, and I’ll take care of this end of it.” 

Jack swatted at one of the millions of flies that lived at the lot, to let off some of his steam. Just what he wanted, to stand in the blazing heat and let sweat pour off his face while Corliss lectured him. Hell, even his moustache was damp. 

James gave a tight nod, his eyes looking pinched, and took himself away. One of the lions from the preserve let off a lazy, long-drawn-out roar, and then dozens of steers answered. Jack took off his hat and wiped off his forehead with his arm, then resettled it, waiting until the noise died down before he tried to save some face by saying, “What can I do for you?”

The man had a nice smile when he bothered to let it show like he did now. When Corliss said, “You are willing to help, aren’t you, Jack?” it seemed a genuine thing and not meant sarcastically, more like the man that Jack had talked with over lunch. 

“Sure.” 

“You are aware of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association?”

“I know we belong.”

“Correct, as feedlots from the general area are included. It’s an important industry grouping for us especially, since we are new to the game. The convention is being held in San Antonio this year and….”

Fuck, Jack thought. He’s going to ask me to go to another convention. Right when I feel settled and don’t want to go traveling all over the place, when I really need to be around to try to straighten out this bad course me and Ennis are on, I’m forced to—

“…I have recently realized that there are compelling reasons for both James and myself to attend. After some deliberation I have decided to include Andy as well, and I intend to inform him of that soon. Our absence will leave you in charge of the feedlot.”

Jack blinked. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting to hear. In charge of the whole thing? Corliss had to be kidding. He stood up straighter.

“We’ll be leaving next Wednesday and won’t be back until Saturday late. That will essentially leave the workings of the lot in your hands through the weekend as well. Do you think you can do it?”

So that’s what James had thought he couldn't do. Jack didn’t blame him; it seemed senseless, since he’d been in the business for all of five months. Not even that. But the sky would have to fall on his head before he admitted his instant doubts. 

“Sure, I can do that,” he said. Guess maybe he wasn’t thought of as a messenger boy after all. 

“Good. Obviously I will have Andy prepare you with the information you’ll need, but in the meantime you can start by handling the pick-up that Cross Country will be making this afternoon. You haven’t supervised one of those before, have you?”

Jack shrugged, trying to act casually. Something really good was finally happening in a month that had been filled with bad, Ennis making him fucking mad one time after another on top of Lureen dying…. But Corliss was giving him a big chance here, showing some faith when nobody ever had before. Jack had always had to find that faith himself. Hope too. 

“Nope, I haven’t,” Jack said, “but I can do it. I’ll go get the paperwork now, read it over lunch, and make sure I’m ready.”

Corliss actually clapped him on the back, steering him so they started walking back to the office. That hand on him, he didn’t like it, but maybe it was showing some confidence? “No need to go overboard. It’s just a normal, everyday pick-up.” 

It wasn’t like a man needed to be an Einstein to turn cows over to a trucker, but Jack didn’t want to screw up, so he really did check everything while he was eating a sandwich at his desk. That took maybe ten minutes, so then he grabbed the files on the trucks that were going to come in the next week. He spent more time pouring over them, trying to make sense out of what was scheduled. Corliss was the one who had contacts with different truck lines and worked up who was going to move the cattle in and out, and more often than not he was the one who saw the truck drivers with the invoice and the transfers of title and all the other paperwork in hand. Sometimes it was James, and only once in a while was it Andy. There were whole truck lines that did nothing but take cattle to the Swift slaughterhouse in the Texas panhandle, and others that made longer trips up to Oklahoma, Kansas, and beyond. 

Two of the files for the next week confused him no matter how he looked at them. Didn’t it make sense that the pens that were being emptied should be moved by only one transport line, not two, to get the volume discount? By not doing that, some of the trucks were going to drive away half empty. It seemed a waste of money to him. He scratched over his ear and took a swig of Dr Pepper. He’d have to find out what was going on with that. 

Jack sat back in his chair and looked around, noticing that the office was empty this lunch hour, with Marge out somewhere, Andy taking one of the reps to lunch, and Corliss off to Raton. 

Corliss. A pretty good manager. Nobody could say he wasn’t. He was efficient, and smart, and had the lot running well. A prime asshole too. A man who was sure the path to salvation was straight and narrow and let everybody know it. A fellow who would fire Jack in three seconds if he ever was to find out his style of living.

But…his boss who’d handed over that big raise. And now was handing over the keys to the feedlot. Jack could still hardly believe it. Maybe…maybe there was a future for him here. It seemed he was making himself valuable despite Corliss’s insults, something he’d sure never done at Newsome Farm Equipment. There he’d only ever been the boss’s son-in-law and hadn’t done much to get out from under that tag no matter how much he’d fumed over it. If the feedlot got successful, if he could keep those pens filled, if someday Marge could tell him on the sly that they were finally turning a profit, then this might be a place he could stay. A place that could be more than just I’m-here-because-Ennis-is, but somewhere he could put down roots and grow with the business. Even if he didn’t have a degree, he could still do okay, couldn’t he? 

He planted his elbows on the desk and stared into space. With things at home the way they were, he couldn’t say life was doing okay. 

Home was the whole reason he was here, and why he wanted things to work out at the feedlot. Without Ennis and him going good…. Last night…. He shook his head. He shouldn’t have said anything about the speeding ticket. He’d found it when he was cleaning the inside of the Ram after he’d done his own truck, his keep-busy for the evening, a crumbled piece of paper on the floor that he’d almost thrown in the trash. It was a good thing he hadn’t, considering it was a seventy dollar fine that Ennis was ordered by the county to pay. 

That wasn’t good news, but it was Ennis’s business, and no man liked having that kind of brush with the cops thrown in his face. He’d tossed it back in and slammed the door shut. 

But, damnit, he’d been irked when he’d walked down the drive to pick up the mail from the last few days and pulled a telephone disconnect notice from their rusted mailbox. It wasn’t enough that it was still fucking hot even at eight-thirty at night, and Ennis had bought that extra horse, and got on his case over the phone call, and hadn’t wanted to spend last Saturday in Taos with him and Janice and Morgan, a real fine afternoon he’d missed there at the auto show. Now it seemed they’d got messed up with who was paying what bill when. Jack could’ve sworn Ennis had said he’d paid the utilities, but the telephone company sure didn’t think he had. 

_He walked back to the house and hesitated at the door, then said “what the fuck,” and kept right on going down to the stable. The edge-of-death pinto was tied in the open space between the stalls, and Ennis was brushing him slow and easy. As Jack moved from the sunlight into the shade, he heard Ennis murmuring, “It’s gonna be all right.” The man’s hands, it was like they were touching a baby, maybe the grandkid he didn’t have yet, but Jack couldn’t feel so kind. That horse was a dragging weight on his mind, on their property when he didn’t want it there, a reminder of where he stood with the man he was living with. He hitched his shoulder and moved closer._

_“Do you know what’s happened with this?” He waved the paper under Ennis’s nose._

_Ennis squinted at it, but without his glasses there was no way he could read. He swatted Jack’s arm away. “Let me be, I’m working.”_

_“Hell, you’re always working. If I waited until you weren’t, it’d be Christmas. I thought you said you’d paid the utilities?”_

_The pinto shifted on his hind legs. Ennis rubbed him with the flat of his hand on the horse’s shoulder._

_“Yeah, I did.”_

_“Well, the telephone company doesn’t think so. They’re hollering about disconnecting us.”_

_Ennis turned his head to frown at Jack. “Telephone? I paid water and electric. You were gonna take care of telephone.”_

_“I was not. It was your turn to pay the utilities.”_

_“And yours to pay telephone.”_

_“Telephone’s a utility.”_

_“Not in my book it ain’t.”_

_“You know, if we had a joint checking account, we could—”_

_“There you go again, pretending.”_

_“Would you quit? I’m not pretending anything.”_

_“Sounds to me like you are. We ain’t married, Jack, and I sure as hell don’t want to be.”_

_“This has nothing to do with that. We are living together, Ennis.” Jack swept his arm out to take in the whole stable and what lay past it. “Same address, same house. Both our names are on the lease.”_

_Ennis winced at that, like now he wondered what had made him lose his mind and sign his name next to Jack’s on the dotted line._

_Great. Just great._

_“So what,” Ennis muttered. He walked around the hindquarters of the pinto to the horse’s other side, hiding._

_“So what? We’ve got to get organized better,” Jack said, talking across the brown spot that lay like a blanket over the horse’s withers. “It’s not like we get electric to one side of the house for me and the other side for you. If we set up a joint checking account and both pay into it, it’ll—”_

_“You’ve got a bee in your bonnet about this account. Let it go, for Christ’s sake.”_

_“Not when it’ll make paying bills so much easier.”_

_“We’d still need to figure out who’s writing the checks anyway. I don’t see how it would make any difference. You just want your hands on my money.”_

_He didn’t believe Ennis really thought that. He said it for all sorts of other reasons, but the pure cussedness of him insisting on what made no sense at all fried Jack’s patience. He stepped around the horse’s rump and stood directly in front of the man who was lately driving him crazy._

_“Of course you’re right, that’s the whole reason I’m living here with you, to get my hands on the Del Mar millions! Then why the hell haven’t you paid that speeding ticket yet?”_

Jack ran his hand over his face as he remembered. Their talk had tumbled over into angry so fast. Ennis had suddenly looked like he was ready to bring his fists into play, and Jack had moved himself up on the balls of his feet to give back exactly what he got, because he was not ever going to let any man punch him again, not even Ennis, especially not Ennis. He was through with being the punching bag and the laughing stock of everybody around him, because he was trying to make a new life with this dumbass idiot who never could see sense….

But instead Ennis had pulled back. He’d said quietly, pretty mild, “I don’t want to talk about this when I’m working, Jack,” and he’d turned back to brushing.

So Jack had backed off too. “I don’t know how to fix this bill thing so both of us are good with it, I’m only saying we’ve got to fix it somehow, okay?”

“Okay. But have you ever….” 

Jack had watched the rhythmic lift and drop of Ennis’s hand brushing the pinto. He could see the horse dandruff flaking off into the air. 

Ennis continued. “…you ever have your electric cut off? Your telephone pulled?” He’d thrown Jack a glance from under his raised arm. “I sure have, plenty of times. They always give you more than a month to make good.”

“I know. I just wanted….” He’d just wanted an excuse to show up at the stable, that’s what. Lately, he’d felt like he didn’t have anybody at all some days. The nights too. “I just wanted you to know.” 

He’d gone back to the house, paid the bill, and mailed it this morning, but he still wished he could walk into the bank and get an application for an account that had two names on it. 

Jack looked down at the old blotter on his desk, scribbled on all over. Like that would ever happen.

An hour later the Cross Country truck pulled up to the side pens where the ramp was, and Jack pulled his hat on to go oversee the transfer of eighty head of Hereford cattle. Mack was ready with his family horse and Pedro would be riding the lot’s paint. Jack stood there and watched while they got the ramp in place. Behind him the cattle were bunched up in the holding pen, being quiet for a change, maybe nerves because they somehow knew a big change was coming that wasn’t good. 

The driver, a short beefy guy in overalls and a dirty t-shirt, came over to shake his hand and said, “How do. Rob McIntyre.” A chaw of tobacco bulged in his cheek, but like Jack’s daddy, that didn’t interfere with his talking one bit. 

“Nice to meet you,” Jack said. “I’m Jack Twist. I thought Hugo was coming through today.”

“That’s me. Everybody calls me that. Cause I was born there, see? Hugo, Oklahoma.” 

“Right.”

“You’re new, ain’t ya?” He spit brown-stained in the dirt.

Manager of Vehicular Operations, what Corliss had called him on hiring day, didn’t sound right for what he was doing. Jack invented a title for himself on the spot. “I’m Assistant Manager for General Operations. I’ve been here a while.”

McIntyre grunted not too differently from the guy who grunted at Jack all the time. “I s’pose I don’t rate the big boss no more, taking me for granted.” He breathed out into Jack’s face, letting loose enough bad breath to make him want to lean back, way back.

“Sorry Corliss couldn’t be here. He had an appointment.” Why did this guy care who watched the cattle climb the ramp? 

“Doubt that, see? He thinks I’m a troublemaker who asks too many questions.”

McIntyre left him standing there by the sorting chute. Jack looked up into the open door of the cab that showed the extended area in back, where there was a place to stretch out in. Then he turned away from it quickly. Once, years ago, back when he’d been boiling through his after-the-divorce-fuck-you-Ennis phase, he’d been really dumb and had climbed into the back of a big rig with a good-looking blond man who’d put off all the right signals. Though nothing bad had happened, what good that had happened wasn’t good enough, and it was something he’d sworn he’d never do again. 

He watched Hugo help make sure the animals got loaded. The man from Oklahoma used a prod that moved them along when they balked, maybe too often and too quickly to Jack’s mind. But there wasn’t any denying that got the animals going. The whole thing took no more than three-quarters of an hour, still plenty long enough for him to tire of standing there like a traffic cop. Hugo came back to Jack after the doors were slammed shut on the last heifer and the cowboys were rolling back the ramp. 

“Did you make the count?” the trucker wanted to know.

Jack hadn’t known that’s what he was supposed to be doing—wasn’t the count done in the pen enough?—so he faked it and nodded. “Sure. You ready to finish up the papers?”

“You’re the boss.”

After checking off a bunch of boxes, Jack’s hand hovered over the signature line that had written under it: Tulip Feedlot, LLP. He’d never signed off as an official representative of the company that sent him paychecks, since Corliss signed all the sale and consignment contracts Jack brought in. Putting his name down now felt like something important, some show of where he stood. Different today than yesterday. Good. 

He made sure all the letters were formed clearly. _J. H. Twist,_ he wrote. 

The trucker couldn’t complain. He’d been paid attention to right away even though they were being stretched to get the pens ready for Jefferson’s group that should be there any minute. Jack handed him his copy of the papers and felt pretty good that they’d done it right. 

McIntyre took them in hand and reached up into the cab to lay them flat on the seat. “So,” he said, as he turned back, “let me ask you something.”

“Okay,” Jack said.

He turned around and walked backward, looking at his rig filled with Herefords the whole way until he stopped maybe twenty-five feet away. Jack followed him, wondering what was going on.

Hugo aimed a square hand toward the whole thing. “Do you see anything wrong with that truck?”

Jack turned around and looked. “You mean besides needing a good wash? Nope.”

“Flaps are there.”

“Yep.”

“Registered proper, got all the information there for anybody with eyes.” 

“If you say so.”

“Got my spares the way they should be, see.”

“I see that.”

“I don’t have a governor on the throttle, but I don’t drive over the limit anyway. Can’t do that with a full load.” 

“You don’t want to mess with that cargo.” 

“That's right.” Another spit into the dirt. “There ain’t nothing worrying or suspicious about this truck, what’s in it, or me. But I got stopped by the highway patrol the last time I left this place.”

Jack made a sympathetic noise. “Yeah. I think maybe they’re stepping up enforcement around here. A friend of mine got a ticket just the other day.”

“Bullshit. I don’t like it, see. You work with Hamilton, right?”

“I’m not here donating my time.”

“Naw, I mean really work w’the fucking bastard, ya know? See what I mean?”

“Right.” Then, when McIntrye seemed to want something more, he added, “Sure, I work with him.”

“Okay then. You tell him I got stopped last week, and I don’t know why. You got that?”

“I’m sure it doesn’t mean anyth—”

Hugo turned and poked a finger in Jack’s shoulder. “I been at this for years, and I know my ass from a hole in the ground. You tell Hamilton what I said, you got it? There wasn’t no ticket, but there might be that and plenty more next time. I don’t like it, being stopped for no reason. Lucky I wasn’t hauling much, if you know what I mean, see.”

Jack backed up, holding his palms in front of him. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell him.” 

“Good. I’ll talk to him about it when I come by next week, see if he’s got something to say.” 

Jack stood there the way Corliss always did, like it was necessary for some reason to see the cattle exchange through to the very end. The trucker climbed into the cab and started the engine with a bellow and blast of diesel fumes that overwhelmed even the smell of the cow shit. The truck lurched into gear and slowly pulled away, down the road that was paved specially for all the heavy traffic it got, then up the rise to the front of the lot, and finally down and over to the main road. 

Jack wasn’t sure if Hugo thought he was in the know or not, if that’s why he’d asked if he worked with Corliss, but he couldn’t help but think that the trucker must be involved in what Corliss was doing with the men who sometimes hid out in the stable. The men who he thought were being passed along and helped by the Sanctuary movement but…who maybe weren’t. Cause that one man he’d talked to had said Chihuahua, not Nicaragua or Guatemala. Maybe sometimes Hugo did Corliss a favor and let a few of them ride with him? He’d heard there were jobs at the slaughterhouse, some that only desperate men would take because of what they were asked to do with the animals. Maybe Corliss’s hidden men were headed there for that reason.

Hell, he didn’t know anything for sure, and he wished he did, but that wasn’t his business. Jack kept his eyes on the cattle truck until it was on the road and picking up speed to fifty-five, and then he wiped the sweat from his brow and trudged back to the office. 

At fifteen minutes after three, Corliss blasted through the office door with a scowl that would scare children, and Jack had the good sense to leave him alone for a while. Maybe his pastor had wanted him to teach about Love Thy Neighbor instead of the Seven Sins, not what the general manager of the feedlot was suited to in Jack’s mind. But Jack knew better than to keep anything from the big boss for long. After minutes passed, he went and got two Cokes from the old refrigerator they kept in the office, then took them with him as he stood in the man’s doorway, waiting to be noticed and asked to step in. 

On the face of it, Corliss took the news about Hugo being stopped by a cop with the same lack-of-interest that he gave whatever Marge talked about on a Monday morning. It was odd, though, him being in such a foul mood to start with, then sitting back and a smile suddenly appearing on his face. That was forced, if Jack was any judge. He told Jack that he was like the Roman god, Mercury, and when he must have realized Jack didn’t get it, he said, “Or if you prefer the Greek, Hermes. You know, the messengers of the gods. You’re Hermes today, communicating from the gods to humans…and vice versa.” He sipped from his cold drink, keeping his eyes on Jack over the can. “You’ve never heard of them?” 

“Oh, yeah, sure. Say, I was looking at the schedule for next week. I saw that both Yellow Freight and Navajo are scheduled for the Thursday afternoon pick-up. It—”

“That’s fine,” Corliss said. “They’re both good firms.”

“Right. But if we gave the whole job to Navajo, we’d—”

“If you ever achieve a position where you’re scheduling with these trucking firms, Jack, you’ll know that it’s necessary to give each of them business. You don’t want to put all your confidence in one.”

“I get that, but we could save the cost of about half one job if—”

Corliss leaned forward and folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “Do you really think I don’t know what I’m doing?” he asked with a lifted brow.

Jack had already pushed it further than his good sense told him he should. “Not that,” he said with the smile he used at such times, not a threat to anybody. “Just thought you might have overlooked it.”

For some seconds, Corliss examined him like he was a bug on a dining room table. Those seconds stretched. “There’s not much I overlook,” Corliss finally said. 

Which was a sign that Jack had better get back to his own corner of the office and leave Corliss to stew over whatever had brought him from lunch in a bad mood. But before he walked away, he remembered the last thing Hugo had said. He turned back in the doorway. “I forgot to let you know. Hugo said he’d talk to you about being stopped when he came for the shipment next week. But I guess he’ll have to talk to me about it instead, or wait until the week after that.” 

Corliss’s head was already bent over some papers. He reached for a pen. “All right, Jack. Please tell James I need him for a consultation here at his first opportunity.”

*****

On Wednesday night, Ennis was even quieter than usual after the way they’d gone at each other about the bill not being paid. He nodded like he hardly even heard or was listening when Jack told him he’d be late the next evening getting paint supplies, that Ennis should eat without him. 

The boy’s bedroom back home in Childress was painted a pale blue, so that’s the color Jack got from the supply store in Raton on Thursday night, along with fresh paint brushes, spackle, thinner, a roller, everything he could think of that he might need. That had been hard, deciding to start getting the room ready, because it brought home that soon Lureen really wouldn’t be around, and Bobby definitely would be, at least visiting for holidays and then after school was out.

Jack set to painting the second bedroom that Friday night right after dinner. The walls was filthy and took real effort to get clean, and then running masking tape all around the baseboards tried his patience. He hated painting, something he was always glad to let Lureen do instead of him, but now it wouldn’t get done if he didn’t do it. 

Finally he dipped the brush in the can and got going, but he was sweating up a storm, and drops kept getting in his eyes. He stopped to wipe his face with one of his old t-shirts he’d sacrificed to the cause. Damn the heat. He’d learned to live with it in Texas, but he’d thought he was through with the fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk summers now that he was in the New Mexico highlands. He hadn’t got a decent night’s sleep all week, even with the fan that he’d set up on the dresser to blow cool air on him. The truth was that there was no cool air to be had, even at night when the temperature usually dropped. And tonight looked to be more of the same.

He stood up from where he’d been crouched painting and dropped the brush on the newspaper spread on the floor. Damn, why the hell was he doing this on a Friday night anyway? Time to give it a rest. Fridays were supposed to be for other things. Besides, he was not going through another night in the fires of hell, and he was not going out on Saturday like was planned without at least trying to get Ennis to come along too. 

The old air conditioner in the back room started with a roar when he climbed up onto the couch and turned the dial, though what idiot had put the AC where you had to climb on furniture to get to it was hard to imagine. Jack jumped down to the floor and marched into the bedroom, the one him and Ennis had been sharing to not much effect the last scorching days. He threw the pillows down to the floor and upended the mattress on its side, then pushed it out into the front room, ignoring how one side was sliding against the not-too-clean floor. Through the kitchen, past the washer and dryer, and then down the step. It fit perfectly in the space in front of the chair. Back for the pillows, set them in place, and when he looked on it, he wondered why they hadn’t done this nights ago. Ennis hadn’t been sleeping any better than he had. They’d laid there in the dark, not talking and not moving, because he didn’t know what he needed to say to that man. Everything that had been happening between them was all mixed up. It was hard to put a finger on what exactly pissed him off the most. Jack hated feeling like this. 

If they could’ve made love, it might’ve helped. Jesus, he missed doing that. They were side by side and far apart. 

Well, fuck that. Jack closed the back room door to keep the air in, grabbed his hat, and took himself down to the stable, though as he got closer he wasn’t sure what he was doing there. His steps slowed when he saw Ennis outside putting the bridle on Fancy, with the horse hitched to the paddock fence. Her golden palomino coat glowed; Ennis sure did keep those horses in good shape. Ennis was a good match for her. He was wearing a short-sleeve, button-down work shirt in that ordinary brown shade that everybody wore, but on him it looked just right. Jack felt some of the burr-under-the-saddle feeling that had pushed him outside fall away, and something else rose to take its place.

Over the years, he’d perfected ways of checking men out, not too obviously, but check them out he did. He didn’t know that he could stop that and didn’t know that he wanted to. Would another man fixed on women stop looking at boobs, and legs, and the sway of hips? Even the married men looked. He wasn’t married and never would be again, and besides, Ennis threw that word out into left field. He was…settled. He let his eyes roam over the shithead man who’d settled him. Out of so many others he might’ve fixed on, it was Ennis. It always had been Ennis for him even when he’d tried to pretend it wasn’t and start over with Gary. His throat got tight as he looked. Shit, life would’ve been easier if it’d been somebody else, but here was the man he wanted.

_You._

Long backbone, big hands, clever fingers with anything to do with animals, not so clever with other things. Hunched shoulders, never seemed to stand up straight, but that was part of Ennis, his man, and Jack didn’t mind. Strong shoulders, even so. He was lean, too lean because he hadn’t yet put back the pounds he’d lost over the winter, and that meant after all these years his shirts were fitting better, not seeming a size too small. Jack had always figured Ennis had got used to wearing them small when he’d grown out of them as a teenager without a mom, a dad, or anybody to provide for him. He just had whatever him and K.E. could scrape together. It was a habit he’d never broken. Jack knew how hard it was to get out from under a certain way of doing things, thinking about his smoking, thinking about him going back to Ennis trip after trip when his need had got so painful. 

The way Ennis was standing, Jack could make out the hint of the swell in his pants. He filled out his jeans okay, had a nice package, not anything to sneeze at, but not anything to brag about either. It was right for Ennis. Just right for Jack. Even after the divorce, when he’d been turned away, when that had sent him skittering across Mexico and Texas from one man to another, he’d known that what he wanted was that uncut dick, that muscled ass that fit perfectly in his hands, the balls that never failed to deliver, the sound Ennis made when, helpless, he poured himself into Jack’s safekeeping. 

The palms of Jack’s hands prickled. 

He hadn’t meant to say it, because the way things were now, he wasn’t sure how it would be taken, but it came out anyway when he got close. “Hey, good-looking.” 

Ennis glanced up long enough for Jack to see that shy spark come into the brown eyes he’d had dreams about. Then Ennis looked to the side, but the quirk to his lips said he really didn’t mind. He shouldn’t; there wasn’t anybody to hear but them and the horse.

“You talk more bullshit than any man I know,” Ennis said, and then he walked over to where a saddle was propped up on its pommel end by the stable wall. 

Jack hooked his thumbs in the pockets of the jeans he’d changed into for the painting, his oldest pair with rips in both knees. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Are you taking Fancy out now?”

“Yep.” One heave got the saddle on the horse’s back. Ennis reached around for the cinch and started to thread it through the buckle. “Finished with the gray, and now I’ll take this one out on the trail until it’s dark.”

“We’ve got to get Morgan to name that horse.”

Ennis grunted. “He’s got a name.”

“Yeah? What’re you calling him?” 

Ennis gave him a sidelong glance. “Something you know all about. More-trouble-than-he’s-worth. Trouble for short.” 

Jack moved deeper into the shade. He wondered if Ennis noticed he didn’t laugh. 

Fancy had a trick of blowing herself up to keep the girth from tightening all the way, which was nothing new to an experienced horseman. Now Ennis took her by the reins and started to walk her, so she’d relax and he could get it drawn up the rest of the way. Jack watched them go away, turn, come back, go past him, turn again, come back…. 

“I wanted to ask you something,” he called as man and horse came close again.

“Don’t got time now, I’m working.”

Ennis had set down rules for his horse business that hadn’t ever been said out loud. Jack was supposed to follow them without even knowing what they were, and how was that going to happen? “On Saturday, I’m—”

“Hold on.” Ennis brought the horse to a stop, looped the reins around the post again, and quickly got to the cinch. 

Jack exhaled air and went over to Fancy’s head. He brushed her creamy white forelock, and she let him. It was silky smooth, combed out by her trainer’s careful tending. She probably didn’t appreciate the attention she was getting here on County Road 19. She was a dainty thing for all her spirit, barely fifteen hands high and small for a man of Ennis’s height and long legs. “Remember Nixon? The buckskin you had for me.”

Ennis said something that was lost in his effort to get the saddle tightened. 

“What’d you say?”

“Said of course I remember.”

“He puffed up too, never wanted anybody on his back unless he made you work for it.”

“He was one fine horse. But he got too old.” 

“We had some fine rides with him. I miss that, you know. The riding.”

Ennis glanced at him mainly from one eye, the other being squinted shut. “So you’ve said.” 

What Jack wanted to say, but what he didn’t say, was that he should saddle up Jigger someday. Maybe this day. That him and Ennis should ride the horses up into the hills, that Jigger could teach Fancy how to share the trail and get her used to working with other animals. It was important for a horse to know how to do that, like it was important for people to know how to do the same, to move with one another the way him and Ennis used to move so easily together setting up camp. They didn’t exchange many words but did the job smoothly. Then they’d sit down next to one another with a bottle shared and not many more words, but a hell of a lot of satisfaction. 

Jack looked down at the sneakers he had on. They weren’t the right shoes for riding, but he knew that was just an excuse. He didn’t want to ask when he’d likely get shot down for it.

He released the hold he hadn’t known he had on Fancy’s reins. He was conscious of words that wanted to come out almost automatically. _Okay then_ and _I’ll let you be._ But that was the man he used to be, who he was trying to change. He was not going to row with the flow all the time anymore. 

But Ennis was up in the saddle already, looking down on him. “Are you worried I hit my head?”

“What?” 

“This is the second time this week you’re down here checking on me. You don’t need to make a habit of that. I know what I’m doing.” 

He clucked to the horse and gave her heel, and Jack didn’t have any choice but to leave his question unasked as horse and rider moved off into the air that was shimmering in the evening warmth. Escaping. When Ennis didn’t want to be talked to, he had ways of keeping the silence on both sides. 

When he heard Ennis come in from his night’s work, Jack was stretched out on the mattress, his pillow doubled over so he could see the TV in comfort. He lost track of what was going on in the movie he was watching as he listened to Ennis move around the house: closing the side door and locking it for the night, washing at the sink all the way up to the elbows, pissing at the toilet while it was flushing, and finally….

Jack sat up, grabbed the TV remote, and lowered the sound a ways. He wasn’t sure how this was going to go over, for the man who didn’t take kindly to change.

He heard footsteps go into the bedroom and could barely hear “What the fuck?” Then, “Jesus Christ.”

A minute later the door to the back room opened and Ennis popped his head in. He checked out how Jack had set things up. “You think we’re two girls having a pajama party?” 

Jack lay back again and put his hands behind his head, trying to show how comfortable he was. “Nope.”

“You got some Barbie dolls there you’re playing with?”

Jack made a face at him. “We’re finally going to get a good night’s sleep.” 

“I’ve been sleeping,” Ennis lied. 

“Oh, sure.”

“You want a beer?”

“I got one already.” 

A minute later Ennis came back with a bottle in hand. He stood next to the mattress and made some show of downing half the Corona in one long series of swallows. 

“You thirsty maybe?” Jack drawled. 

“I’m beat,” Ennis said. He put the beer on the table behind him and then his hands went up and he undid the first shirt button. The second. Jack couldn’t pay too much attention to the latest truck Chevy was trying to get him to buy. Ennis pulled off his shirt, and Jack didn’t know if he was aware how Jack was looking. Again. Ennis had always had more chest hair than he did, though they’d both got more as the years piled on, and there were heavy patches right around his nipples, something Jack had not seen on other guys. He liked to play with those patches, liked to suck on those nipples too, when Ennis would let him, which wasn’t often, saying it did nothing for him. It did something for Jack, though. His breath got deeper thinking about it.

When Ennis was stripped down to his green and white striped shorts, he looked over to Jack with his face relaxed. No smile, no sign of tension leaving and the real Second-Day Ennis showing, but at least no hard words about any of the shit that’d come up lately. “What are you watching?” 

Jack glanced at the TV where the commercials were going on and on.

“Steve McQueen in _The Great Escape.”_

“That’s a long movie. I don’t think I want to see it all.”

“Just for a while.”

“Okay.” Ennis stood there looking undecided, but then he took himself off again. It was hard to hear over the air conditioner rumbling, but Jack was pretty sure the shower started running. He stretched his hands over his head until they were under the chair and pushed his toes straight until they hung out over the mattress. Maybe him and Ennis could get on the same page this night. Damn, he needed them to be on the same page.

Ennis came back with his hair wet and dark, slicked straight back. He’d put his shorts back on and slid onto the mattress with a sigh. He kicked the sheet down a ways and then pulled his legs up over the rest of it. 

“Are they digging the tunnel already?” he asked. 

“Almost.” 

“You really want to see this?”

“For a while, like I said.” 

“Peculiar way to sleep. That air’s blowing right on me. I’ll never be able to sleep with it that way.”

Jack peered up at the air conditioner set in the high window over the couch. “I think those vents move.”

Ennis climbed up onto the cushions and fiddled. Jack ignored the James Garner character doing his thing in favor of a better view, Ennis’s backside pushing against the thin cotton fabric. It was damn sexy seeing the swell of his ass and the line in between where he wanted to go this night, and then the muscles of his shoulders and back stretching as he reached. Damn, Ennis turned him on. 

A shiver went all the way from Jack’s lips—imagining kissing all around that ass—down like a streak to his bellybutton and then to his dick. Imagining some more. He hadn’t been inside Ennis, heaving over Ennis in what felt like weeks. He couldn’t remember the last time. He wanted that feeling bad, sinking into heat, the way a man’s ass, Ennis’s ass, was tighter than any woman could be as it clenched all around like the tightest glove. Something about fucking Ennis was better than anything too, maybe knowing for sure nobody else had ever done what he was doing, Ennis letting him in. 

His dick let him know it sure was interested, stirring, sitting up and taking notice.

“How’s that?” Ennis asked, and he turned to look at Jack over his shoulder, catching him in the act of getting an eyeful, maybe noticing something else too. He smirked. 

Jack put his hand over onto Ennis’s side of the bed instead of grabbing at himself and giving a tug. “The air’s not blowing here anymore. You’ve got it mainly on me now.”

“Good.” Ennis jumped down and flopped onto his back again. 

Ennis didn’t seem to like movies the way he did, but they’d watched a few together on TV. Jack liked to go see movies in Amarillo or Dallas or wherever he traveled, in one of the big multiplexes. He’d been in one down by Houston that had stadium seating, which was the latest thing. There was nothing like that here in the valley, although there were a few theaters in Taos that weren’t too bad, and another in Raton. Someday…. He cocked his head a bit to see his fellow idly scratching at his chest while he took in Steve bouncing his ball against the walls of the cooler. Someday he wanted to walk into a movie theater with Ennis. He didn’t care what was playing. It could be _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_ and he wouldn’t complain, but if he could do it with Ennis…. That was another thing that wasn’t ever going to happen, along with really dancing with his man, but back when he’d let himself, he’d dreamed that and a million other dreams.

Wait a minute…. Ennis wasn’t scratching his chest, he was…. His fingers were curved, and the tips of them were barely touching the skin between his nipples. Moving back and forth, quiet and gentle, like maybe he wasn’t even aware. But he was. He must be, even though his eyes were fixed on the movie.

Jack swallowed so loud there was no way Ennis hadn’t heard.

“I always liked Charles Bronson in this,” Ennis said right on the swallow’s heels, more loudly than he usually spoke. 

Liked Charles Bronson or _liked_ Charles Bronson? Jack wasn’t going to ask and force Ennis to provide an answer to that question, not this night. 

“He’s a good man,” Ennis continued. “Gets away in the end too, doesn’t he?”

“Not sure I remember.”

A commercial for Tide laundry detergent came on. “You get that telephone bill mailed off?” Ennis asked.

“Yeah, I did it yesterday morning. Next month, I’ll pay the water and the electric, and you’ll pay the phone, okay?”

“Got it.”

“Your turn to pay the rent too.” 

“That’s the way I see it.”

Jack pretended to yawn, letting his arms go wide so that he brushed over Ennis’s arm that was still toying with his chest. He let the weight of his arm linger there, pressing, making sure it was felt. Ennis’s hand stilled under him. Then Jack finished his yawn and quickly hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his own plain white shorts. He pushed them down. Wriggled out of them and brought his foot up where he could grab them and toss them over onto the couch. 

Silence except for the lady telling them about the whitest whites and the most colorful colors. Jack stayed where he was on his back, naked, right next to the guy he wanted to jump on top of. His dick couldn’t be missed as he had to stare along the length of his body to see the TV; it was flushed red and raised high to graze along the sightline of the controls at the bottom of the set. It was aching to be taken in. 

_Let me…._

Right after the movie came back on, Ennis asked, “Ain’t you gonna get under the covers?” 

Ennis wasn’t blind. “Not until I try to sleep,” Jack told him. “You want to get the light? We don’t need it to watch this.” 

Ennis got up and went over to the doorway where the switch was. “You want another beer?” 

“Nope, I’m good.”

The overhead bulbs went out, leaving the TV the only source of light in the room, flickering in that weird white way over everything. Jack abandoned Donald Pleasence—who was forging some documents, pretending something was what it really wasn’t—to watch Ennis make his way back with patterns dancing over his skin. Before he lay himself down again, Ennis skimmed off his shorts too, and let them stay on the floor where they came off his ankles. He turned backward and flopped onto the bed, and when he straightened himself out, flashes of television light gleamed over an erection that made Jack’s mouth water, that looked like it meant business.

But not business immediately, it seemed. The Nazis were fools, not to know what was going on under their noses in the prison camp. Jack wondered what him and Ennis looked like, two fools in bed like statues, hands at their sides, next to one another with hard-ons, not doing a thing about them. 

“Funny thing about that cop who stopped me,” Ennis said when the next commercial came on. 

Jack’s right hand touched his own collarbone and then went without stopping straight down until he finally reached his dick. “Oh yeah?” He didn’t try to keep his sigh of relief quiet at all; he wanted what he was doing to be known. It felt fucking fine even just to stroke with the tips of his fingers, which was how he always liked to start when he was doing himself.

Doing himself. An arrow of really sad feeling stabbed at his guts. He didn’t want to be alone, and he didn’t want all the crap of bills, and answering phones, and too many horses to ruin what him and Ennis had got started. 

_Come on, Ennis, are you looking at me? Do you like what you see?_

“That cop, he was real interested in the Ram.”

“Like in wanting to buy it?”

“Maybe. He checked the registration over like he was memorizing it, and he….” 

Ennis got up on one elbow and looked down on at where Jack was fingertip-stroking the head of his dick. Jack felt his gaze like it was touching, heavy, and any second he hoped Ennis would lean down or reach out or roll over on top of him…. But he didn’t. Ennis just kept looking, his eyes glittering in the TV light, seeming to be hypnotized by Jack’s fingers tip-toeing back and forth on himself. 

But Jack couldn’t take his eyes off Ennis’s face, made new. It was almost like he was seeing this man for the first time. Shit, he really was good-looking. He really was so sexy that if, in the before-times, he’d given Jack the come-on and headed for the back of an eighteen wheeler, Jack would have followed with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. He really did show a hint of what was deep inside: pure man with a powerful fucking style that had nailed Jack to the floor of the tent that first time as surely as he’d been nailed period, needing to be close to Ennis for the rest of his days. 

His dick was rock hard and weeping already, the slick coming out stronger than usual, because Ennis was looking at him….

Ennis licked his lips. At the sight of that tongue, Jack gave up on the fingers stroking crap, wrapped his hand around his dick, and pulled. 

_See, Ennis? Man in your bed. Me. Do I have you? Or don’t I have you? Are you here?_

“He, uh…. He, uh, he wanted to know how long I'd owned it.”

“So?” 

“I could tell he was looking it over. That’s the second time you’ve caused me trouble in my truck.” 

“It’s not my fault,” Jack panted. He arched his back, pushing up high through his circling fingers, rubbing more of the pre-come flowing out all around. His dick wanted lube too, down on the floor by his feet where he’d put it, but no way was he stopping now to get it. Instead, he went back to stoking the fire, pushing, pulling, watching Ennis watching him, as it seemed that Ennis was getting closer and closer, his eyes bigger and bigger.

_God, it’s been so long since I’ve been in you, Ennis, reaching deep down inside of you, riding you, riding you, shit, wild to think of riding you that way, clutching round your chest my nose on your spine, snapping my hips to stay in you, untamed bronc, you are just like your horses, wild man, and the muscles across your back straining and you gasping for air…._

Ennis groaned and fell back against the mattress, spread his legs, put his hands on himself, and Jack thought he would shoot right there, such a powerful thrill zapped through his dick. He squeezed himself hard to stop his coming, then rolled up and over, leaned close, not touching, still working himself because there was no way he was going to stop, building up high, but he had to look down, to see how Ennis pushed his foreskin back the last bit, rough on himself, how he used both hands from the beginning, rolling his balls with his fingertips and jerking his dick strong right away. How Ennis opened his eyes and found Jack’s. He was like to fall into those eyes….

He couldn’t help it, Jack fell back away from that looking, him and Ennis connecting, because he’d got too high. Now he couldn’t see Ennis any more, but he could hear him as he worked himself. Jack matched the sounds coming from right next to him, flesh on flesh, hands on dicks, each of them making love to himself, the sounds of his own breathing harsh through his mouth, right along with Ennis heaving in air. 

_Like this, like this, are you pulling on your dick like this, this is how I like it, right there’s the best, again, yeah, rubbing myself raw but I’m not going to stop because there, oh, shit, there, it’s coming, my balls so tight, didn’t want it this way, wanted to be in you, but maybe I am, I’m not sure, and fuck, I’m close, touch you, I could touch you right next to me but it’s too late, I can’t hold it back, I’m coming, Ennis…._

_All over my fingers, fucking good, good, another one, jerk, pull, another one, don’t want it to end, feels so good, so good, don’t ever want this to end._

After, he could’ve opened his eyes, could’ve watched while Ennis finished, because Jack was way ahead of him. Maybe he could’ve finally touched this man beside him in their half-a-bed low to the ground. But…it seemed he shouldn’t do that. He let Ennis do what he wanted to do at his own pace. Not throw his shy man off. So Jack watched only with his mind’s eye, drowsing, giving in to the tired that came over him, listened while _The Great Escape_ played but mainly he heard the slick sounds, the breaths getting faster, and then the grunt as Ennis let loose. 

Jack woke up deep in the night to a whine coming from the TV as the test pattern glowed. He opened his eyes to see Ennis on his side like he was, facing the middle of the bed, snoring a little. After a while, he reached for the remote and shut the damn TV off. 

*****

They were going to have to do something about that wall where Ennis had smashed it the night O’Hara had called. Jack lay on his belly, his chin buried in the pillow, and stared at the splintered wood. It would be hard to match that old paneling, but they were responsible for keeping the house up.

“’Morning.” Ennis was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. He glanced down at where Jack had rolled over. “What’re you doing up? It’s Saturday. You can sleep in.”

“I wanted to get some more painting done this morning.” Jack sat up too. 

Ennis made his it’s-too-early-to-talk sound, levered himself up off the mattress, and butt-naked disappeared out the door toward the bathroom. 

They met again at the table with Cheerios, toast, coffee, and more clothes on. Jack had shut off the AC and propped open the back room door, so a little bit of coolness found its way into the kitchen. As he took his first sip of coffee—needed it—Ennis got up and opened the window over the sink. Jack could feel a waft of early morning air come through.

“Get me a spoon, would you?”

“Here you go.”

Jack had gone through his first bowl of cereal and was pouring his second when he said, casually, “Next weekend, I won’t be around much, for sure on Saturday.”

Ennis looked up at him. “Oh yeah?”

“Corliss and James and Andy are all going to the Cattle Feeders Convention in San Antonio. They’ll be gone starting Wednesday and won’t be back until Saturday late. Corliss is leaving me in charge of things.” Jack reached for the milk.

“He is?”

“Yeah.”

“That whole time, you’re the boss?”

“Yeah.”

Ennis looked real serious, his hands resting on the edge of the table. “Damn, that’s good, Jack.”

Jack shrugged, but it was fine, Ennis saying that. Even better was when Ennis half raised up from his seat and extended his hand across the table. Jack took it, they shook briefly, and as he was letting go and sitting back, Jack said, “It’s not like I’m getting paid extra.”

“I don’t know how much extra they could give you after that raise. That was one hell of a lot of money.”

“True enough. I guess that’s what the raise covers, stuff like this. So, I might have to stay late during the week, and for sure I’ll be there most of Saturday.”

“That’s okay, it’s because of work. I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” Ennis treated him to one of his lightning smiles, there and then disappeared, “how to treat you if you make it to be the big bossman.”

“That won’t happen. It’s just this week, because they’ll be gone. Listen, about what I was trying to ask you yesterday.”

“What?”

Jack almost kept his words to himself because he knew what Ennis was likely to say. It maybe wasn’t all that good an idea anyway. He should have learned the lesson already at the Ford dealership in Amarillo, to keep business and personal separate, even more important because he was a gay man. But maybe him and Ennis could get over this bad spell they were in and spend a day together. Even if it wasn’t anything like that time they’d been in Fort Worth, a memory he kept precious. He had to try.

“You remember me talking about James Perez, the bunk manager? Him and Corliss are thick as thieves, and James is the one with all the know-how about feeding.” Ennis nodded. “Yesterday he asked me to go to the gun show with him today in Raton.” 

Ennis bit into a piece of toast, chewed, and said with his mouth full, “You were gone all last Saturday, and that night too.”

“Yeah, well, that was a good car show, and Janice is a great cook. The thing is, I was hoping you’d come along. Maybe you and me, later, we could have dinner out.” 

“You want….” Ennis swallowed abruptly. “With Perez? The three of us together?”

“Yep.”

Ennis pushed himself back from the table, his chair screeching against the linoleum. “Are you crazy? No way. That ain’t gonna happen.” 

“Come on, Ennis. We haven’t had much time together. You’d be interested in this, guns and knives, wouldn’t you? We need to get out.” 

“You need that, not me. Besides, I thought you liked that job. If you want to keep it, you won’t be bringing me along.” Ennis reached for the Cheerios and folded up the plastic inside with purpose. “Jesus. I can’t believe you’re so dumb. You idiot.” 

Jack drew in breath sharply. Where did Ennis get off calling him that? “He doesn’t need to know anything, just that we’re friends. Friends, get it? You’d just be a friend who wanted to come along.”

Ennis shook his head. “When are you gonna learn to live smart?” Ennis stood up, walked over to a cabinet, and shoved the cereal box up on a shelf. “Aren’t you ever satisfied?” He turned around and spread his hands. “Isn’t what we have here okay?”

Jack looked to the side, down to the floor. “That’s that not the point.”

“It sure is. I want to keep what we’ve got and not throw it away. Being here with you….” Ennis’s jaw clenched, rippled. He struggled for words. “Look, I don’t need to go out but I guess you do. Besides, now that old man O’Hara knows about us, thanks to you, I’ve got to get both those horses ready to go, and I’ve got no time for foolishness.”

Jack closed his mouth against what he wanted to say, because it would do no good. He tried instead, “Why can’t you give it at least half a day? You can get a lot done between now and eleven.”

Ennis shook his head. “Not enough. No, you go on up to your gun show, and keep that good job of yours. But bring some whiskey home with you, because we drank up most of it the other night.” 

That was that. Ennis turned away to put the milk in the refrigerator and the bread back on the counter. Jack gathered up the dishes, put them in the sink, and then went to get Bobby’s room ready for the time when Lureen was dead and the boy was here to introduce to that so-called partner of his. When the clock ticked to eleven, he went outside and looked down toward the field for Ennis, but he was nowhere to be seen. So he got in the F-150 and drove away.

*****

Monday night at almost ten o’clock, and Ennis had been in for thirty minutes. Jack was watching the local news, slouched in the old chair that had come from Wyoming but seemed to fit him just right. His shoes were off and his feet stretched down to the mattress that was still on the floor. Ennis sat on the far corner of the couch facing the side of the TV, one leg propped on his knee with his glasses on, reading something or other. Jack hadn’t asked and he hadn’t said. 

He ran his finger along his moustache, only half-listening to news about how the Republicans would be nominating Reagan again. It’d been a good idea, bringing the bed in to where it was cool, because at least he was sleeping, but it seemed the small house had got a lot smaller, with them not living in the bedroom at all. He didn’t like the feel. Jack glanced over at Ennis and took another sip of the whiskey that had been in his hand the whole evening. It was like they were living in a stall from the stable, bunking with the damn shouldn’t-be-there pinto in between them.

On Sunday night the weather had tried to break with a thunderstorm that shook the windows of the old house. He’d been glad he’d nailed in the loose shingles when the wind blew down from the mountains like a hurricane. But today had been so humid that walking outside was like swimming, and he’d done a heap of walking and sweating because Andy had gone over a ton of stuff for when he’d be left with the lot. First thing he’d done when he got home was take a shower. Him and Ennis, they’d be sleeping on the floor for a while yet.

The news ended and an old _Twilight Zone_ episode came on right when the phone rang. 

Jack pushed his feet against the mattress so he could twist in the chair and stab a glare at the thing. He would be damned before he answered it. Let the businessman answer it. 

One ring. Two rings. He looked over at Ennis and saw him scowling. 

Jack got to his feet, silenced the TV with the remote, and walked across the mattress until he hit solid floor. “Go ahead,” he said. “You get it.”

It rang six times before that sonofagun picked up, when Jack was already out in the laundry room headed for the john. 

“Hello?” Ennis said, sounding like a bear woken up from hibernation too early. “Oh, you, Shelborne.”

Jack stopped in his tracks and turned to go back, because he sure as hell didn’t want to hear the explosion that was certain to go off if Ennis Del Mar had to talk to his former lover for more than thirty seconds. 

But it seemed Ennis had other plans. That irritated bear wanted to swipe at something. Jack got to the open doorway and heard, “Don’t you have anything better to do than call from bars for Jack?”

He took the step down back into the room and looked over, but Ennis’s back was turned to him. 

“You don’t get any sympathy from me. Jack’ll be back in a minute, so you tell him about it. What? You’re drunk as a skunk. What don’t you remember? Jack’s what?”

He closed the door behind him. Ennis must’ve heard it, but he gave no sign. Instead he grabbed the telephone cord and jerked at it, sending the phone base skittering across the old table. “I don’t know how many.” 

Ennis’s voice was plenty deep, a growl for sure, but Jack couldn’t figure what they were talking about. He stayed where he was and listened. 

“What the hell does it matter how many…. I don’t waste my time like that, counting.” 

Jack frowned. Damn, he’d better come to the rescue before Gary made mincemeat out of his cowboy. Gary had a way with words, better than he did because of his education, but he never pulled his punches, and if he’d been drinking, there was no telling what he might say. Things were bad enough here; he didn’t need his old boyfriend butting in and making things worse between him and Ennis. 

Jack moved to where Ennis was standing, then walked up onto the bouncy platform of the mattress where for sure he could be seen. He made a motion: _I’ll take him._

Ennis ignored him. “Fuck you, Shelborne,” he snarled.

Shit. Those two had always been angry dogs circling. Out loud, Jack said, “Let me talk to him.”

“You ain’t never gonna see them again, you hear?” Ennis said as fiercely as Jack had ever heard him. “You and Jack don’t have anything going on any more. You turn your eyes somewhere else.”

Jesus. Jack stopped himself from rolling his eyes. But, damnit, he didn’t like the way they were talking about him. “Come on, give me the phone.” 

Ennis jerked away from him in a half turn, raising his elbow high to get away. “I don’t need to hear details from you about last night. You keep that stuff to yourself. I don’t—” 

But then Ennis cut off and listened for a while. Jack could hear the tinny sound of Gary’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. Ennis’s elbow came down, and the stiff-backed strut he’d put on melted into one of his slumps. “What? How’d you….” he said so quietly, Jack almost couldn’t catch the words.

“Ennis, for Christ’s sake, give me the phone!”

Ennis didn’t, but it wasn’t hard to take it from him, because he didn’t fight against it. But the look he turned on Jack…. 

“Whatever he said, it wasn’t me who said it!” Jack defended himself.

Ennis grabbed the glass half-full of whiskey that Jack had been drinking from. He took three long swallows that drained it and wiped his mouth. He took in Jack like he was a child-killer and then stalked out of the room. 

“Jesus Christ,” Jack said into the phone. “What the hell did you say to him? Gary?”

He recognized the sounds coming to his ear. It was the kind of place he’d been to often back when he’d thought the coach was a gift: music playing in the background, the buzz of conversation, a TV up high with some baseball game on. He could imagine the bartender pouring drinks and the pretty waitresses smiling at customers. Gary never went to dives, and San Antonio must be full of well-lit, brand-new, shiny bars. 

What was that sound? He couldn’t make out…. Gary was laughing. 

“John, I swear it is too easy to set off that stick-in-the-mud man of yours.” Gary obviously thought it was the joke of the year. 

“That’s not right. You shouldn’t—”

“Can you believe it? I told him I couldn’t recall how many brown spots you had on your ass. Because I can’t. So many men, so many moles. But he wouldn’t tell me.” 

Damn, he sure was drunk, one of those elegant drunks who said every single word as precisely as if he was in school, and just like the last time he’d called from a bar. But Jack would have preferred that time when he was crying in his beer to this time, laughing at Ennis’s expense. 

“Gary, don’t you do that again.”

“Oh, come on, it’s way too much fun not to. He’s so up-tight, like he thinks you should have stayed a virgin once you left him, that once he had your ass nobody else could because it was holy territory. He’s such an act, he should go on the stage.” 

Jack sat down in the chair with a thump. “What else did you say?”

“What’s the matter, did I create a small problem for you? Trouble at home?” 

He looked over at the wide-open door, letting all the cool air out into the heat of the rest of the house. He didn’t know where Ennis was, but he could be listening to every word if he wanted to. 

“No, it’ll be fine. But what’s this about telling him something you did last night?”

“Oh, nothing. I only said the man I screwed last night reminded me of him.” 

Jack clenched his eyes shut. “Gary, you’re not playing fair. Don’t fuck this up for me.” 

“John, if talking to me ruins things between you and Ennis, it wasn’t meant to be anyway. Trust me, I know, because I’ve been through this with Jeffrey.”

He pressed the receiver harder against his ear, knowing the truth of what Gary said. “It’s not like that. We’re fine.” 

“Maybe you want to get away for a while? Come visit for a weekend. You said before you usually weren’t busy on the weekends.” 

“Yeah, well, lately…. Listen, I’ve got to go.”

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s not your type, your Mister Sophistication. How you put up with him for twenty years I’ll never know. Remember what kind of shape you were in when you came to Amarillo? An emotional wreck, a cripple, not nearly as much fun as you should have been, and all because of how he’d walked all over you for all those years. I took you on as a charity case at first. When we started dating, I never thought you’d be as good a screw as you are. Then, that first time, remember? You had a lot pent up. I don’t think my bed was ever the same. My eyes were opened, and I decided maybe it would be worth while putting some time into getting to know you a whole lot better. And let me tell you, you are worth more than some rundown dump in New Mexico, stuck out with the hicks, where there’s nothing to do and nobody with any sense to talk to. You and a herd of cattle, all that cattle shit, I laugh my head off every time I think of it. That’s what Ennis should be doing, not you. Remember that black suit you used to wear selling at the dealership? You had it on that time I picked you up when we went out to Georgio’s. I thought—”

Gary rattled on, but Jack wasn’t listening. He was staring off into space, the receiver slack in his hand, because Gary had succeeded in reminding him of how it had been. Or maybe it wasn’t because of Gary, but because of how things weren’t going too good with him and Ennis. It came back to him in a pain-filled rush, as if was yesterday. That day in Amarillo. 

He’d been in the city for weeks and had already hooked up with Gary, but he’d needed to go back to Wyoming, to Pine Creek, on November 7, to make things right by making things the wrongest they could be. 

And afterward, that one day in Amarillo: November 8. 

_Eight hundred miles he’d never have to drive again. The door to his townhouse slamming shut behind him. Sitting on his sofa in the living room. The clock showing five. Remembering how he’d said I’m leaving you, then the shattered look on Ennis’s face, stuck in his mind like a TV show on permanent rerun. Being thirsty, because he’d cried on and off the whole long trip down from Wyoming. Touching his cheekbones, wondering if he could feel the tear tracks, because they should be permanently worn into his skin._

_Later, still sitting, staring. He was a tree pulled out of the ground, and it fucking hurt to lay on the dirt with his roots laid bare to the world. Ennis, I’m leaving you. I am queer. I love you. I’ve wanted you for so long, but you’re never going to give yourself to me. You are torturing me as surely as if you were pulling my fingernails out. You’ve pulled my dreams out. You’ve pulled away all my hope. There’s nothing left._

_Eight o’clock at night. His memories sparkled like stars, those times he’d let himself imagine what it would be like to lay down at night with the man he needed to be with, in a bed, in a house, and then to wake to the touch of Ennis’s rough hands on his body, there by right, there by need they both had. How good it would be to finally conquer this constant ache, if only, if only, if only he says yes this time. It would be so good. Except now it would never be good, because I’m leaving you he’d said._

_His muscles hurt, all that time in his truck, all those tears, now sitting in one spot in this house that sure didn’t feel like a home. Why the hell was he here? Because he’d rescued himself at the very last minute, before he’d taken a razor to his wrists or jumped in front of a train, except here in Amarillo it felt like the same thing. Damn you, Ennis, he thought deep inside, and then he stood for the first time in hours and said it out loud. “Damn you, Ennis.”_

_For what you made me do. For saying no. For being afraid. For teaching me what it is to have nothing left inside. For not understanding or caring about what I needed, and never putting me first._

_For making me love you. God, I hate you._

_The phone rang. Nine-fifteen. It was Gary, saying, I thought you’d be home by now, how about meeting me at The Red Stag for a drink?_

_Sure, that’s great. I could use a beer right now._

_Then, later, come back to my place? I had a key made for you while you were gone._

_Sounds good. I’ll see you at the bar in half an hour._

“Good-bye, Gary,” he cut into whatever he was saying and slammed down the phone. 

Ennis was sitting at the kitchen table, in his own chair but pulled around to the side facing the back room. A bottle was at his elbow and a full glass was in his hand. 

Jack planted himself, stood more than a few feet away, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Gary can be an asshole sometimes.” 

The glass was raised, drunk from, and lowered. “Huh. All the time.” Ennis was looking off to the side, his face blank.

“About what he said, you can’t—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“You never do, but there are some things that we—”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

A rush of tiredness and bitterness dumped down on Jack, and his arms fell to his sides. Sure, fine. Just because Jack wanted to talk, needed to talk, wanted to try and make things right between them, that meant nothing to Ennis. What Jack cared about didn’t mean shit.

“Besides,” Ennis said, and now he looked at Jack directly. “It doesn’t matter.” 

After the look that he’d got as he took the phone? That wasn’t likely. But it was one more thing piled on top of all the other crap lately. “Okay,” Jack said. He wasn’t going to fight this; he was too tired of it all. “I’m going to bed.” 

Ennis examined his fingers stretched out along the table. A man’s hands, Jack saw, that he knew better than he knew his own. Bit-off nails, dirt from working hard, the wart Ennis had on his little finger. 

“I’ll finish this. Don’t want to waste good liquor. Be in later.”

*****

Damn, this was a blow to his pride, being offered a prize only to have it jerked away. Jack doubted that Corliss saw it that way. It was just another day in the office to him. But this was the last minute. Tuesday night. Fuck. 

But…maybe this could be a good thing. It could give him and Ennis some time and distance, a breather. It seemed like a bad movie, though, considering the invitation from Gary, to visit, that he’d got last night, that no way would he follow through on. Jack’s hands on the wheel tightened. Any way he looked at it, he needed to tell the news to the man who didn’t take kindly to things sprung on him suddenly. But it couldn’t be helped. It sure wasn’t his idea.

Jack turned left into the drive and deliberately aimed for where he’d patched the pothole the best he could. The truck rolled down anyway, his fix not perfect. But it was better than it’d been. 

He pulled up behind Ennis’s Ram and got out, not happy about getting home from work when there was only an hour of daylight left. The sun low in the sky was still shining brightly over the roof with the shingles that held firm against storms, but there was no storm in sight, only washed-out blue skies with no clouds, and no sweet evening breezes either. Texas weather. As he trudged across the gravel to the side door, his footsteps crunching, he thought about Lureen and how she was doing. He wondered if it was boiling hot there in Childress. At least she was in a house with full air conditioning. 

He threw his keys down on the counter by the wall phone, where Ennis’s were too, and right away checked the refrigerator. There wasn’t much there. He settled for scrambled eggs and toast with their last soggy banana, and then was still so hungry that he opened a can of Ennis’s godawful Spam and actually forced a sandwich of the stuff down his throat, choking on how foul it tasted. Somebody was going to have to go shopping, but it wasn’t going to be him. 

There was a pile of his clothes in between the mattress and couch, and then another one that he’d forgot about in the bedroom. He tried to keep it all in his arms at one time, but stuff kept falling to the floor, socks, underwear. He cursed but finally stuffed it into the washing machine. He was going to need clean clothes.

The kitchen needed cleaning up, but that was an excuse to keep him indoors when he needed to go out. It was time to get the dirty work done. He left his hat where it was on the table, slapped the screen door open, and went looking for his fellow. 

The stable was empty, and the pinto and Jigger were head to tail in the paddock. Out in the middle of the field, Ennis was up on the gray, his hands low on the reins as he set the horse into a trot. There were five days until Sunday, when Morgan and Janice had their anniversary. That wasn’t much time left, considering how, even as he watched from the fence, the horse shied suddenly, tossing his head and coming to a dead stop that jerked Ennis forward over his neck. 

Jack could hear the short-tempered curse across the space between them. 

“Goddamnmotherfucker!”

The gate complained when he opened it. He was careful to latch it back, because Fancy and Dawn were in the field too, and…. He was halfway to Ennis when his steps slowed. What the fuck? What the hell?

He came to a standstill as red heat rushed through him, as the first few seconds of not being willing to admit what he was seeing passed, and he realized what it was. Any fool could put two and two together, even a fool like him. Tied to the fence under a tree was a sad-looking chestnut mare. He wanted to kill her.

But it wasn’t her fault. 

He kept his sight on the mare even when he heard the steps of another horse come close. Ennis on Trouble. A sore on the mare’s hip, her tail a rat’s-nest tangle, a narrow chest that told she’d never be much good for any distance work. 

Never much good.

Jack looked up at where Ennis sat on the gray looking down at him. Ennis had always been more comfortable riding than he was walking. Maybe Jack should have realized that for him the stable really was better than the house, that the horses were better company than people, and that training a gelding was better than spending time with him. 

Ennis had found a way of keeping silence, but it had taken Jack until now to realize it in full. 

His fists clenched as hard as he could gather his fingers together, and he wanted to swing them at something. Jack lifted his chin and stared at the man staring back at him. Ennis’s face was set in stone, and his eyes were steady, certain of what he’d done. 

A shadow passed over Jack, something flying overhead, loosing his tongue. “Where….”

Ennis jerked his head in the mare’s direction, like maybe there was some question of what they were talking about. “Some guy left her in Floyd’s front yard a couple nights ago, and he ain’t set up to care for horses. She’s got good value. I can get her up and going in a month. She didn’t cost me a dollar.” 

Jack spit in the dirt. “Is that so.” 

“I’d be crazy not to take her on. It would be like stepping over money on the sidewalk.”

Jack realized his shoulders were trembling, and his hands. That seemed shameful to him, and he turned to the side, away from where the forest meandered along the edge of the property, hoping the movement would help him get control of the wild feeling that was running around inside. He grabbed air, gulped it in. This…. 

His daddy pissing on him. 

“That makes six horses you’ve got now,” he said, aiming for calm and not getting it.

“Yep.”

Okay. Okay. He put his hands on his hips, because he knew Ennis didn’t like it when he did that, as seldom as he got riled up, and then he swiveled to look up into the fucker’s face. There was no sorry there at all. 

“I’m not going to be in charge of the feedlot this week after all.”

That got a frown, at least. Trouble shifted to the side, but Ennis brought him around with a word and shortened reins. “How come?”

“Corliss decided him and James have to stick around. I’m not sure why. But he’s sending me instead to the convention with Andy. To the Crowne Plaza Hotel in San Antonio.” 

“San Antonio?”

“Yeah. Where Gary lives now.” He took some satisfaction in saying that, at the flare of alarm that came into Ennis’s eyes. “I leave first thing tomorrow, and the plane’s scheduled to come back to Angel Fire late Saturday afternoon. But I thought I’d stay over and see what the city has to offer for the weekend. There sure as hell isn’t anything here to keep me.” 

The frown cut deeper into Ennis’s face. He lifted the reins in tight hands. “Staying over? What do you mean?”

“Gary’s invited me to stay with him. I’ll see his new place that night, have a couple beers.” 

The horse jumped forward, out of control in a second, and Jack was glad to see it happen. He watched while Ennis struggled to slow him, as the gray half-bucked, half-galloped across the field, turned in a wide looping curve, and then came tearing back. 

Jack didn’t need to see any more. He spun around and headed back to the house, telling himself he didn’t give a fuck. 

“Jack! Jack Twist, you fucking wait right there!”

He turned in time to see Ennis haul at the gray’s mouth cruelly, with a savage jab at the bit, pulling him up with a heavy hand. The horse went back on his haunches, and Ennis was out of the saddle in an instant, his hat flying down to the ground. He dropped the reins, letting the horse go free without a backward glance. He stormed toward Jack, his eyes fiery, his mouth twisted in fury. 

Jack didn’t let him talk first. “I’m looking forward to this trip, so I can get away from you and your goddamned horses.” 

Ennis grabbed his arm hard enough to bruise. Jack shook him off. “Don’t you touch me, you shithead.” 

“You ain’t going no place,” Ennis said, right up in his face.

“Oh, yeah?” he said, not pulling back an inch. “I’ve got a job to do and I’m doing it. You and how you’re always almighty worried we’re going to lose our jobs. So I’d better go to San Antonio, don’t you think?”

“You ain’t gonna see the coach.” 

“Gary’s my friend, Ennis. Something you don’t seem to understand. People have friends, even people who are married, even men like us who are fucking trying to put a life together!”

“Don’t you see Shelborne, or I’ll….”

“You’ll what?” Jack sneered. “You’ll leave? You never got here! You’ve never been here! You don’t want to do things with me, you want to hide me in my own house, you like it just fine right here in this field that’s your hidey hole. That’s not what I signed on for. I’m gonna go out on the town with somebody who’s not ashamed to be seen with me!” 

Ennis was red in the face, breathing heavily, his shoulders bowed forward as if he was trying to hold himself in. “So you can tell him more stuff that should be private, you and me together?” 

“What? Are you still on about those fucking moles? Who gives a shit! Get used to it, Ennis, me and Gary used to—”

“He knows I ain’t cut!” Ennis hollered. “He said the guy he was with that night was like me, that you’d told him how I was, that the guy he was with liked him to do the same things you did to…. You told him! Stuff that’s for you and me, not for the goddamn coach to know!”

“That’s just Gary talking, you asshole. Can’t you tell when he’s spouting nonsense? I never told him stuff we did in bed.” 

“I know you’re lying. He picked you up at the Rotary Club in Amarillo and you spilled your guts. You told him all about me and how I wasn’t any good for you.” 

“So what?” Jack roared, remembering with shame how he’d been cut open and couldn’t stop bleeding, all because of a Wyoming cowboy who wouldn’t admit what was. “So fucking what? I thought I’d never see you again, because you were too much of a coward to come after me. That wasn’t ever going to happen. You bet I told him stuff. I had to dump how I felt about you somehow, let it go so I could find myself a life!”

“Yeah? Well, this is the life you found.” For just a couple of seconds, Ennis spread his hands wide, taking in the mountains on the horizon to both sides, the vultures’ tree, the horses standing in a clump over by where the mare was tied, Trouble still tacked up and sweaty. “You got this place, and these horses, and me, but that ain’t good enough for you, is it? I’m the one who ain’t good enough, and I know it. No way I can be who you want me to be, and I should stop trying. I told you, Jack. I told you when I walked in your house in Amarillo that I didn’t have it figured yet, not complete. Guess we should’ve waited, not for me but for you, because I ain’t never gonna be able to turn myself into the coach or that Randall fella.”

“I don’t want them!” 

“It don’t look like that from where I’m standing. You want whatever I’m not and what I’m never gonna be. You’re always pushing on me. I am fucking sick of you pushing!”

“And I’m fucking sick of doing the pushing! Jesus Christ, if you had your way we’d have gates all around with electricity running through, zapping anybody who tried to get in. I want to live, Ennis, not hide!”

“And I want us to stay together!”

“No you don’t! You want me to stay quiet and not mess with what you’ve got going. You’re so scared I’ll butt into your business that you won’t even ride with me. Six horses you’ve got now, and not once since we’ve been in New Mexico have we gone on a fucking ride together. When I said I wanted us to move in together, I was thinking of something more than just being where you stick your dick!”

Ennis drew back, suddenly pulling his shoulders square. “I ain’t heard you complaining before this.”

“I’m complaining now.” Jack took a step back too, because he didn’t want to be any closer. “You know what I think’s going on? You want a man. A dick. You’ve been fucking gay all your life, but you’ve never been with any man but me. It’s me you’re stuck with, because you’re never going to step out and find somebody else. That’s why you won’t listen to me when I try to talk to you, because you don’t care. I’m just an ass to stick your dick.”

Ennis’s eyes narrowed. “You are a bigger fool than I take you for, Jack Twist, if you think that.”

“It’s sure beginning to look like that to me,” Jack said, setting his jaw. 

“You’re the one who wants somebody else, not me. You and the coach, talking all the time on the phone. You seeing Randall Malone when you go back to Childress, that ranch foreman. Shit, when I think you even told me you were fucking his wife, when I should’ve damn well known then that you meant him—”

Jack threw up his arms. “Oh, sure, let’s talk about me going back to Childress to see my wife dying of cancer, you fuckhead, and my son who’s going to lose all respect for me when he finds out I’m living out here with you, and all you want to know about is if I saw the best friend I ever had in Childress, which isn’t saying much, goddamnit.”

“You shut up, Jack. I don’t want to know.” 

“And that’s the story here, isn’t it? I am back to walking on eggshells around you, right at a time when that’s not what I need. I don’t need this shit from you. I need somebody—”

Abruptly, Jack closed his mouth over the next words. He was shaking inside, fearful because of all the anger in him that had come up so fast and strong. How’d they gotten to screaming at each other in the middle of the field?

He needed Ennis to listen, to care, to work in the same harness with him, the two of them aiming for the same things so ten years down the road they were still together and both happy that they were. He needed Ennis to let him in, instead of keeping him shoved away. He needed Ennis to help him with all the mixed-up feelings he had about Lureen, and Randy, and all the things he’d done over the years that Ennis didn’t have a clue about. He needed, goddamnit, a partner in this life they were living together, a real partner, and he needed Ennis to not buy any more horses because he knew Jack didn’t want him to. 

But he would sooner cut his tongue out of his mouth before he asked for any of that now. It was no use, anyway. 

He kicked the toe of his shoe against a clump of grass. “I hope you like the company of your horses this weekend, because I won’t be around.” 

“Go to hell, Jack.” 

Jack looked at Ennis steadily. “I guess I will, but I’m going to San Antonio first.” 

*****


	12. Free

“…can’t make it tonight, Gary. There’s the opening dinner I can’t get out of, and then I’m supposed to meet these guys from Abilene for drinks with Andy. How about if we get together tomorrow night?”

“If you’d told me you were coming, then—”

“I didn’t even know until yesterday at four. This is all last minute.”

“You could have called me last night. Then I would have at least tried to clear my schedule.”

“Yeah, well, too much was going on last night. I couldn’t—”

“It’s too late now. I can’t do tomorrow. I’m taking last year’s starters and a few other members of the team out to dinner, and then they’re coming back to my place. You know, a sort of relaxation thing before the school term starts, building team spirit.” 

“How about Friday night then?”

“Friday I can do. I have a hot date, but I’ll cancel him and make you my hot date instead.” 

“I used to be, but not anymore. Listen, how about lunch tomorrow too?”

“Wow, you are eager. Be careful, John-boy. You’re going to turn my head, because I think I’m flattered.”

“Get your head on straight. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, and I’m ready to shoot the breeze, kick back, and have a good time.”

“Say no more. Lunch on Thursday. Where do you want to meet?”

“I don’t know this town. I’ve only been here once before. I’m at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on the Riverwalk.”

“Oh, fancy. You cattle feeders don’t do things half-measures, do you? Including getting cattle shit on your boots. You’ll scrape off before you meet me, right?”

“Real funny.”

“How about the hotel restaurant? You won’t have to go far then, and it’s probably good.”

“No way. The idea is to get away and do something different. Somewhere else.”

“Okay, then how about The Republic of Texas restaurant? It’ll remind you of what you’re missing by going off to the wilds of New Mexico to live. Good food and me, that’s what you need. They have excellent shrimp fajitas and buffalo steaks. It’s on the Riverwalk, about three blocks down—”

“I’ll find it. Meet you there at noon?”

“I’ll have a bottle of red wine waiting. Remember how we used to share a bottle on Friday nights before we—”

“It was only last year. Sure I remember. Listen, I got to go. So long.”

Jack jerked the phone away from his ear and slammed it down, because he didn’t know what he was doing in San Antonio. Corliss and James were the ones who were supposed to be here, making connections, taking advantage of contacts, and learning from the management practices of other feedlots. Hell, he didn’t even know enough to ask the right questions. He could sell the lot services to customers, the way he had in Kansas City, without even half trying, but here at the Cattle Feeders Association, he was in over his head.

Jack got up from where he was sitting on the colorful swirls of the Southwestern-styled bedspread and stalked over to the window. He was on the third floor, low down in this hotel that stretched more than fifteen stories above him. He wished he was up higher instead of this close to the noise and confusion of the Riverwalk. The Crowne Plaza was right on it, prime real estate, and though him and Andy had checked in not thirty minutes ago, he knew already that people would be strolling along the river—dammed up, re-directed, turned-in on itself to make what was natural into something unholy unnatural—at all hours of the day and night. 

The balcony door slid open with a smooth _swish,_ and he stepped out into the late afternoon sun. When he leaned on the rail it was warm as it pressed against his palms, not hot, easy to hold on to.

Flat-bottomed boats drifted along the sluggish water, giving the tourists a ride in more ways than one, with the tour guides spouting their spiels over microphones. Mariachi music came from his left and from his right, maybe from one of the open air restaurants that ran along both river banks and maybe from one of the boats. Somebody had a good sound, but it was hard to separate out the tunes. Outside one of the shops a senorita was handing samples to passers-by; she was wearing a wide, full skirt in bands of rainbow colors one after the other, and her hair was piled up high on her head, topped with a bow. 

San Antonio. Parties broke out along the Riverwalk at the drop of a hat. This was a good-times city, sobered only by the wreckage of the Alamo not far away. But Jack had already made that pilgrimage, him and Lureen and Bobby, when the boy was in middle school. So it would be drinks tonight, lunch tomorrow with Gary with his legs stretched out and a wine glass in his hand to help the afternoon speed by, the Association awards banquet Thursday night with Miss Texas singing and plenty of good-looking, tight-assed waiters to fill up the view, and then Friday night where he could finally let loose and have a good time. He was in a big city where he could forget life for a little while. Damn it, he intended to take advantage. 

Jack drew in air and let it out slowly. He watched a young couple pushing a stroller on the other side of the water; the Riverwalk was marked by ups and downs, steps all over, not a good place for a baby on wheels. The mother picked the little boy up as the dad picked up the stroller and carried it across to the next smooth patch. But there was another set of steps not too far on that Jack could see but the parents couldn’t. 

He realized that he’d said nothing to Gary about staying over with him at his house on Saturday night, after Andy would take the plane back to Angel Fire. Today had marked the second time that Jack had flown in a small private plane at the feedlot’s expense, but there was no other easy way to get some places. If he stayed over like he’d said—

—using Gary as a threat, thrown at Ennis like a rock, aimed at his temple, direct hit, he was a boy in the schoolyard, hey, you hurt me, I’m going to hurt you—

—if he stayed with Gary like he’d said he would, there was no easy way to get back to New Mexico. He’d better check out flights to Albuquerque, and then he’d have to rent a car and drive back to Eagle Nest. It was going to cost. He wasn’t sure he wanted to do that, except he was so fucking mad. His anger whirled through him like a fierce wind, rearranging everything, a hurricane that was still blowing strong. Ennis’s face looking down at him defiantly when Jack had seen that mare, Ennis demanding that he couldn’t see Gary: remembering that kept Jack’s temper going.

Jack went back inside and slid the door shut behind him, and the sounds of the city-alive faded to a low buzz. Gary, he’d always been fun to be with, at least before Ennis had showed up, and that was what Jack was after right now. Gary wouldn’t mind if Jack decided to stay over with him on Saturday at the last minute.

Fuck you, Ennis.

With his badge pinned on his black sports coat, he made sure he had his new business cards in his inside pocket. His best gray felt hat went on his head. The first Meet and Greet session of the 1984 Texas Cattle Feeders Association convention was due to start in five minutes in the Brazos Room on the mezzanine, and him and Andy had things to do for the Tulip feedlot. He scooped up the room key at the last minute. The door closed behind him, and he walked toward the elevator that would take him down. 

Hours later, he had to admit that the Association was no penny-ante operation. It knew how to take care of its members. After the opening dinner, they hadn’t had to go far for entertainment or booze, not even outside to the river. The president had announced over the after-dessert hub-bub that the hotel lounge would be open until two and they’d arranged the best entertainment money could buy. It seemed half the membership had trooped on down to find a knock-out, red-headed singer who purred with the best of them and had boobs that would knock you over if she turned too fast. Jack had spent half the night staring at them through the smoky air, not with the fake interest he’d perfected long ago on the rodeo circuit, as if he wanted what she had to offer, but in mourning. He was remembering the times he’d buried his face in Lureen’s breasts and sucked on her tits with his eyes closed, so that he didn’t really have to see what he was doing. Most of the time, it’d been a dick in his mouth he’d imagined and what had got him hard. He wondered if Lureen had figured that out, that their whole sex lives together had been him conjuring up a man.

He took a drag on his cigarette and blew out smoke. God, he was drunk already. How’d that happen so fast? 

The good ol’ Texas boys from Abilene were talking to each other, and Jack watched their lips move without having any idea what was being said. They were reps from a twenty-year established feedlot who knew Corliss but hadn’t looked too sad that he wasn’t around. They were okay, the kind of men who felt like he did, that it was fine to keep their hats on in the lounge, where a person could hardly see across the table in the flickering light of a single candle anyway. 

Jack took another swallow of his Johnnie Walker on the rocks, thinking maybe he was staring at the guy right across the little round table too long. But he wasn’t able to shift his sight until after he’d let the booze linger on his tongue for a while. Then he swallowed. There. He put the glass down carefully, following it with his sight, exactly on the same wet ring as it’d been on before, next to the ashtray that he’d added to considerably. He could relax with these guys as much as he could relax with anybody who didn’t know his secrets. Hell, nobody told anything but lies in dark places with velvet-curtained walls anyway. 

Andy was on his second Coke. Jack guessed it was a big deal that the upstanding member of Living Water Baptist Church had even bowed down enough to be in this place with him and the others. “Feedlot business,” he’d said with a set jaw, and followed Jack in. But he did stick out like a horse at the Indy 500, uncomfortable enough to run away with the bit between his teeth. Ennis would be able to fix that, of course, since he could train damn near any horse alive to do what he needed it to—

Nope. Jack wasn’t going to think about that fucker who thought so little of him.

He leaned in closer to Andy, sitting next to him. “You could put some rum in that, you know.” He nodded at the drink in Andy’s hand. “Rum and Coke. It’s famous.” 

“No thanks. Baptists don’t—”

“I know.” Jack sat back in his rickety chair. “You don’t dance, you don’t drink, you don’t…how do you get babies, anyway?”

He scored a hit, because the other two guys laughed out loud, but the look Andy sent his way wasn’t good. But what the fuck, his boss was almost young enough to be his son. Ten, no, thirteen years between them. 

Jack sat there a while, his thoughts skittering, trying to make sure they didn’t land on that man back in Eagle Nest who used to be his best friend and lover, and now was…. Jack didn’t know what the fuck he was to Ennis now or where he stood, and that about made him want to kill something. He drank some more and lit up another cigarette. 

He was glad when the singer came back on, something to grab his attention, though surely not the way she grabbed the eyes of the other three men at the table. That…that was sad. Jack sent his sight down to his drink—didn’t know how many he’d had—saw he had less than an inch left, brought it to his lips, tasted it, and set it down. Even he’d been able to appreciate Lureen’s beautiful breasts, that she only had one left of, but he’d never really wanted them. He wanted a person who came equipped with a dick and balls, because he was a gay man who knew what that meant, damn it. He lifted his head and gave some words to Andy.

“You’ll have to do lunch tomorrow on your own.”

Andy turned away from temptation in a green sequin dress like he was glad he had an excuse to do so. He leaned in a lot closer to hear over all the noise in the place, the singing and the talking. “What’s that?”

“I’m having lunch with a friend tomorrow.”

“There’s an address on animal activism during the lunch here. It’s on the schedule.”

“Oh, come on, Andy.” Jack was aware he didn’t quite get those words past his stiff lips as clearly as he wanted to. “You don’t need me for that.”

“Who are you meeting? I didn’t know you knew anybody here.”

“A fellow.”

Andy’s eyebrows raised up. It was sort of interesting to see. “A fellow?”

Hadn’t he made that plain? “Yeah. A fellow. A friend, you know. I met him when I lived in Amarillo. This past winter.” 

Andy threw him a little frown. That was a frown, wasn’t it? It was a little hard to tell in this cave. “Really?” his boss said. It seemed that one word held a world of disappointment in it. Sort of the way Lureen used to say when she knew Bobby was trying to pull a swift one. 

Well, fuck it. Andy wasn’t his mom, or dad, or Lureen, or Ennis. Damn Baptists. A man could miss one fucking lunch. He was going to miss Friday night too.

The singer reached a high note and held it. Don from Abilene raised his hand, caught the waitress’s eyes, and waved at her to come over.

“Sure, go have a nice lunch,” Andy said, getting Jack’s attention again. He lifted one shoulder and shifted in his chair like his butt had got stuck to the plastic. But Andy didn’t have a butt worth looking at twice, not like his own good-looking…not like….

“So, how’s your wife doing?” Andy asked. 

Jack took a breath. The place was so filled with smoke, having a cigarette in his hand seemed hardly needed. “Ex-wife. She’s okay.” 

“That was nice, meeting her at the animal preserve. She seemed like a fine woman. It’s such a shame that the cancer has her. I hope she goes into remission.”

“Me too,” Jack said. He let his back curve as he slouched down in his seat. 

“How’s Ennis?”

If he hadn’t been wasted, he would’ve sat up straight. What the fuck? “How the shit should I know?”

He’d never talked to Andy that way before, and he wished he hadn’t the second, or two seconds, or three seconds, maybe, after the words were out of his mouth. 

But Andy didn’t let Jack stop him; he looked real determined, like a man with a mission. “I thought…. I mean, it was nice meeting Ennis a few weeks ago. I hadn’t realized he lived near us.” 

_Andy met Jack’s eyes, being brave. “You should have told me about the two of you.”_

_Jack’s scotch hit the table with a crash. The glass splintered against his fingers and toppled over. It spilled what was left of good booze mainly onto his creased forty dollar pants but splattered some onto Andy and the floor too._

_The waitress was over in a second with a cloth._

The waitress was over with a smile, “Another round for y’all?”

Jack blinked.

“Andy, Jack?” Hal from Abilene asked. 

“Nope, I’ve had it,” Jack said.

“Me too,” Andy said in a rush. “Travel days always take it out of me.” He pushed his chair back and stood. “If you can tell me tomorrow where to get that information on the feed discounts, I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure thing,” Hal nodded, but his attention was back on the waitress, not twenty-five yet with a smile and a skirt slit up to here. 

Out in the lobby, the tobacco smoke smell suddenly released them, and Jack saw Andy take in fresher air. The man probably had never smoked or held a joint between his fingers. Probably he’d never even seen a joint. Probably he’d never been drunk. He wasn’t wise in the ways of the world, and that meant Andy wasn’t one who would jump to conclusions about him and that friend of his who, yeah, lived pretty damn close to him back home. It would never cross Andy’s mind.

The elevator was crowded with men in hats aiming to hit the hay, but when Jack got off on floor three he was the only one who did. He walked back the way he’d come seven and a half hours earlier, his feet in his best boots hardly making any sound at all on the deep gold carpet. He should sleep tonight as soon as his body hit the sheets. Good, because he sure hadn’t slept much the night before in Eagle Nest, thinking on things that whirled around and around in his brain, questions that he’d brought with him to the Alamo City. 

He put the key in the lock, pulled it out, and pushed the handle when the green light came on. Home. _Home on the Range._ The tune slithered out of his brain and kept playing itself over as he got ready for bed. When he collapsed back on the pillow, the damn song disappeared, and he wondered where Ennis was sleeping. Last night, Jack had taken the couch under the air conditioner. Ennis had dragged the mattress back into the bedroom and had sweated it out there. 

“You are a damn fool,” he whispered into the dark. “Just to make a point, I bet you’re still sweating tonight. You’re a fool.” 

The distant echo of a late night happy-go-lucky man laughing on the Riverwalk drifted up to him where he was alone in his room. His air conditioner turned itself on then, masking the noise of people down below, providing a cushion of steady sound that he could sink down into, fall asleep to. But sleep didn’t come easily after all. He’d get close, could feel it drifting over him like a blanket, only he’d jerk awake because somebody walked down the hall or flushed a toilet a few rooms away. More than a time or two, he thought he heard soft snoring from the pillow next to him. 

But nobody was there. Nobody gave a damn about Jack Twist, trying to sleep in a big hotel bed in San Antonio, mad at the world and fearful that all he wanted was slipping through his fingers.

*****

“What’s the problem? Ennis? I said, what’s the problem with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You look like you’ve lost your best friend.”

Floyd was a pain in the ass. 

Wednesday on the Buckminster ranch was passing like it was a month long. Rocky’s steady walk, and Betty Jo’s toothy smile, and the boys’ complaining about school coming soon, and the little one’s blue eyes going through him like arrows cause they reminded him of Jack-not-here. Floyd his normal self, friendly, when nothing in the whole fucking world should be normal. Jack had gone to Texas to meet the coach. 

“Ennis, Rocky told me you should take Delilah instead of Samson this morning. Cheer up, my friend, tomorrow will be a better day.” 

Tomorrow, and then the day after that, and then the day after that was when Jack should be coming home, only he’d said he wasn’t coming home when he should. He was staying over.

Delilah gave him a lot of trouble, and his face burned to think of Rocky up on her when he’d trusted Ennis to give him a good horse. 

After lunch Ennis wanted to huddle with the three year olds, just him and them. He wanted to take a brush to every horse’s hide and curry them until they reflected the sun, but Rocky needed his help sorting through a big feed shipment, After that he wanted to talk about how they were gonna finish off the three year olds and when some of them might be ready for the auction block. Ennis spent the whole afternoon in sheds with him, in the big barn, and finally in the room of the house that Rocky used as an office. The boy came running in to give his dad a big hug and then did the same with Ennis. Davey wanted to sit on his lap for a while, and he didn’t feel he could say no, not in front of the boss, so there Davey sat. At least the young one didn’t hardly have two words. Toward the end Floyd showed up, yakking about the shoeing schedule for the broodmares. Him and Rocky tossed words back and forth like they were baseballs. Ennis couldn’t get away from any of it, when he needed to get away, though for what he didn’t know, cause what he was thinking was crushing the life out of him. 

Jack was in the big city that was nothing like northern New Mexico, and he was with the damn maybe-he’s-a-donkey-dong, who knew all about Ennis’s business. His…his most private stuff, how he felt on Jack inside and what they’d done on their mountain trips that told of how Ennis felt. When he thought of Jack telling the coach things—maybe they’d been naked when they’d talked, maybe one of the coach’s long arms had been wrapped around the man Ennis had thought was his, maybe it’d been a lot worse, things Ennis knew had happened but couldn’t stand to think on—a shiver went right across his shoulders. Goddamn Jack cared so little for what was precious to Ennis, what he guarded not only for himself but for the two of them together, that he blabbed all about it to that asshole. Ennis felt like the top layer of his skin had been peeled off. 

Finally the long day ended, and he was released from the hell of walking around like ordinary. It was time for him to go home, but Ennis’s shoulders hunched when he got closer to his truck. There was nothing to go home to. There was no reason to go back to the house except the horses, nothing that pulled him there except Fancy for O’Hara, and Trouble for Morgan….

He punched the Ram’s frame before he opened the door, and for the flash of a second it was the coach’s face he punched, or maybe Jack’s, and it felt fucking good except that it felt fucking bad. He got in the truck and revved the engine, trying to drown out his own thoughts.

Stubbie’s was safe, loud with music blaring, with a cigarette machine that gave him Marlboros and a bartender who gave him booze and then left him alone. Perfect. It gave him hours to know he didn’t give a fuck about that man from Lightning Flat, always pushing him, never happy with just-Ennis, always comparing him to those that had plowed the Jack-ground before him and after him and every other time in between, that shithead. The guys with the really big dicks who knew how to use them cause they’d had plenty of practice, who had good jobs with money to spend.

About ten o’clock, though, when he’d long since lost count of the beers and the whiskeys, when he felt like ten truckloads of horse shit had been dumped on his head, sudden fear froze his bones right there on the barstool. 

Jesus, was Jack even coming back at all? 

Ennis clutched at the bottle in front of him and groaned out loud, but nobody heard him. He’d got it wrong. He didn’t know where or how, or what he’d done that had turned things around this way. How’d it get like this? A couple weeks back, it’d been good, hadn’t it? 

Frantic, Ennis stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray without caring that he scorched his fingers, feeling sick like he was on one of those kid’s carnival rides, dangling upside down. Jack hadn’t seen it, had he? That…that…that what he’d done yesterday hadn’t been so bad. Had it? He’d been forced to take on that extra horse. What could he do with Floyd offering and the deal being damn good? Jack hadn’t seen that the mare wasn’t gonna take much care, that she’d give a good return and that would be found money for them. Him and Jack could put that money into a better house for next year and…. 

Him and Jack. 

Jack and the coach.

Ennis found himself outside in the stinking parking lot, fighting the urge to puke over a black puddle that seeped into the wall. 

The door banged open. “Hey, you there! Don’t you skip out on the tab!” 

Ennis straightened, fumbled for his wallet, and handed the man a twenty. 

“Five more. That wasn’t just beer you were drinking, Mister.” 

Shit. Ennis wiped his mouth on his sleeve and paid up. 

He was half a mile down the road before he remembered to put on his headlights, and then his fingers slipped twice before he could pull out the knob to make the highway bright. Too bright. Ennis squinted past the spot where he’d almost hit Jack’s Ford, when he’d stopped for the downed hawk. Damn that man, such a fool, stopping for animals, now in Floyd’s care, Floyd who’d caused all this trouble with that damn fucking horse. Okay, so he’d been fucking mad about the phone call with the coach, and it was true that sixth horse he’d brought in the next day had been part of that, but he hadn’t thought it would push Jack as far as it did. He’d just meant…. Shit, he should’ve stopped to think. 

Ennis pounded the steering wheel and then pulled on it to get the truck going straight again. It’d serve Jack right if he died on the road, show that fucking man what he lost, what he’d lose if he didn’t come back, and who the hell was Jack Twist to say no more horses? Whose horse business was it, huh?

His stomach gave off a hunger pain, sloshing against the whiskey, though no way could he imagine putting food in his mouth.

He drove the truck all the way down to the stable cause he needed not to stop at the house that was dark and soundless. The bare overhead light bulb came on with a snap, shining on the six stalls and the middle aisle that was beaten down dirt and dusty with straw. Ennis stood in the doorway, his hands clenched by his side, his ears straining for sounds of life. There…. A horse moving, the only horse he was still keeping in the stable, since he’d put Floyd’s mare in the paddock. The pinto made a sound that was only half-horse, the barest hint of a normal whicker, and Ennis had to swallow against the relief. He was still alive, not laying flat waiting to be hauled off for cheap dog food. A couple seconds later and Ennis could see him, moving slowly, carefully hanging his head over the stall half-door. 

Ennis shuffled over to him. He had to hold on to the edge of the wood with both hands for a minute to get his balance, but when he could he reached up and scratched the gelding behind his ears. 

“You okay? You doing better? Maybe you need that new feed….” His voice came out ragged. His hand was shaking as much as his words, the damn booze getting to him, the long day, Jack spilling his guts to the fucking coach. 

He pushed the horse back and opened up the door to slip inside to where it was living. Ten feet by ten feet, that’s what the pinto’s world had collapsed to, waiting to see if Ennis could get him back to where he should be. Ennis stepped up next to him, ran his hand from the crest of his neck, over the bump of his withers, and along his spine to his tail. 

“You are skin and bones.” He felt down the horse’s hindquarters like he had to, to know the touch of the horse’s skin against his palm, the sharpness of bone, the tension of muscle and ligament. The warmth. 

The pinto shifted from side to side, away from him, toward him, away from him again, but he was one of those horses that, sad-sack though he was, seemed to want a man’s hands on him. The brush was away down the aisle where Ennis kept such things, and that was too far to go. Ennis didn’t take his hands away but kept both of them flat on the patterned horsehair. He slid them along the pinto’s side.

“You like that?” The horse shifted once more, toward him, pushing up against his hands, so Ennis did it again, sweeping his fingers from front to back along the grain of the hair, not against it. Some pansy-ass might say he was petting the horse like he was a dog or a cat, like this was some ordinary thing he was doing alone at midnight. But this was something different, important, something this animal needed, it seemed. Maybe it wasn’t new feed that would turn him around. Maybe it was, as Ennis had thought, that somehow his spirit had got broken. His own sad heart seemed to overload at the thought. 

“Who done that to you, boy? I’d kill him, taking a fine animal like you must’ve been, bringing you low.”

He kept stroking over and over, trying to do some good, trying to make some sense out of what had happened. It was Wednesday night late in Texas, an hour later than in New Mexico with the time change. Who knew what Jack was doing right now, maybe finding life in a city with fucking fancy-pants Gary Shelborne to his liking. When he came back—if he goddamnit came back—maybe he’d be different, fed-up, and not wanting to try with Ennis any more. 

Ennis’s hands stopped moving. “What’m I gonna do?” he whispered. His thoughts rose up from the ground at his feet like ghosts. It wasn’t true what Jack had said, that he wanted any man, wanted any dick. If Jack was in his head right now, he’d know that truth. If he was here, Ennis would grab him and shake him and say stuff he should’ve maybe shouted at him when they were in the field, when everything was falling to pieces. He’d say…. 

The pinto’s back was a resting place for his two hands, for his sweaty forehead bowed down, for his aching head. _I listen to you, you goddamned fool. Every word. I can’t forget anything you say, it’s always running around in my head, all the things you want me to do, the ways you want me to act._

He pushed himself up straight, tired right through. His goddamned man. What the fuck did he have to do to get through to Jack and make things right? He’d already moved heaven and earth to be here in New Mexico. Hell, he’d even said Bobby could live with them. What more did Jack want? 

Maybe…maybe nothing would be enough, nothing that a man from Wyoming had to give, anyway. Those other men Jack’d had…. Guess he didn’t stack up too good compared.

It wasn’t the first time he’d slept in a stall, and it wouldn’t be the last time. A saddle blanket on a bed of straw, that was okay for him. He bedded himself down in the next stall over and listened to the way the pinto was still breathing. 

But he couldn’t sleep. He knew he couldn’t go a second day to the Buckminster ranch without any sleep, and hung over too, so he tried, but it wasn’t much use. 

Didn’t Jack know…. Didn’t Jack know how Ennis felt on him? 

*****

He should be back at the hotel for one of the afternoon breakout meetings. He’d told Andy he would cover “Expanding the Market for Beef,” and it’d started twenty minutes ago. Instead, Jack was making the circuit of the Riverwalk, turning left when he’d walked out of the restaurant instead of right just because he wanted to, just because he felt like giving the finger to the whole wide world today. It would be a while before he found himself back in front of the hotel as he walked the big circle that attracted the tourists to the city every year, and that was fine with him.

“You sounded blue over the phone, John,” Gary had said over lunch. “How are things with you and Ennis? Okay?”

“Sure,” he’d said easily as he reached for the wine. “Fine.” 

“Really? I thought I’d really pissed him off the other night.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “You did a fine job of that.” 

“So, did he do a count?” Gary asked with a wicked grin.

“What?”

“Did he count the spots on your ass?”

Jack laughed out loud, the first of a bunch of laughs during the ninety minutes he spent over lunch. Why not? It was impossible to get serious with the new coach of the Trinity University basketball team, especially since Gary seemed in a really good mood, happy to see Jack and insisting on paying the tab. So, Jack let himself get carried away in that direction. They ate quail and elk and buffalo, drank the full bottle of cabernet, and talked about everything except what was on Jack’s mind. Any time it looked like Gary was headed in that direction, he steered him somewhere else. 

They parted outside the restaurant, shaking hands like ordinary men, and then Gary pulled him into a hug like the lovers they used to be. Jack told himself he didn’t give a fuck, because nobody knew him in this town anyway. “We’ll have a good time tomorrow,” Gary said. “I’ll pick you up in the hotel lobby at eight o’clock, okay?” 

Sure. He was looking forward to it. Ennis could burn in hell before he would stop Jack from spending time with his friend. 

Jack lit a cigarette and wandered along the flagstones of the Riverwalk. Up a set of stairs to take him over a bridge, back down to the pathway, under a different bridge where the air was a lot cooler and the smell was dank and musty, and then out into the bright yellow sunshine again. 

He could see the high tower of the hotel from almost anywhere on the walk, and when it seemed he’d passed the halfway mark on his journey back to it, he slowed his steps. There was every kind of upscale store along the sunken pathway the river took, and soon he let one catch his attention. He opened the door of the boot shop.

There were aisles and aisles of fine quality boots in every size. The air smelled of leather and polish, the floors were waxed wood, and the price tags were enough to make his mama faint. But he wasn’t his mama, and Jack was feeling restless and reckless in equal parts. He went over to where the sign said Size 12. 

After a while looking, he zoned in on a pair of crocodile leather Noconas with full grain cowhide leather uppers and fully lined with soft calf leather, according to the label. They were black with bold blue stitching, exactly to his liking, but even in his mood, he wasn’t ready to put down $450 for a pair of boots. He set them back on the rack.

He passed over a bunch of ordinary-styled cowhide boots, because he had two pair of those already, one that he was wearing, though nothing like what this store offered, top grade premium. A gray and black pair of rattlesnake leather caught his eye, but he had no liking for snakes and couldn’t imagine feeling comfortable with them on his feet. But right next to them were a pair of more traditional-styled boots that were made of ostrich leather. Black again, which seemed to be what he wanted today, and on sale for $225. Better yet, the toe style was one he favored, not as pointed as some but not the wide ordinary look either. 

_What the hell,_ he thought, _try them on. You just got a big raise. Go ahead._

He sat down on one of the little padded stools and started to pull off his old boots that looked shabby compared to the new ones. The salesman turned toward him, probably to help with the pulling off and sensing a sale, but he got distracted by another customer. Jack stood and stomped his feet into the ostrich boots until his toes got comfortable, and then he set off down the aisle to see how they were when he walked.

Pretty good. He stopped and looked down at how they appeared. Not bad. He turned and started to go back to where his own boots were sprawled across the carpet, when the boots in the new section he was in caught his eye. 

Work boots. Really fine-looking, sturdy, top-of-the-line work boots, of the kind Ennis had never worn in his life, the kind he never would even think of wanting. Jack stopped dead in his tracks.

Size 13. It was like Jack had no control of his hand at all. He reached out and pulled one off the rack, brown, ordinary, low-heeled, cowhide. 

It was like touching something living. Ennis. 

God, the man worked so hard. He was up against the raw line of exhaustion half the time, dragging himself from one task to another. But that wasn’t an excuse.

 _Slow down,_ Jack thought. _Slow down and take a look at me. Take a look at what you’re doing to us, you goddamned son of a bitch. Because if you don’t, there isn’t going to be an us any more._

Jack looked at the boot he was holding like it might break any second, or die. Ennis would wear them well. Lord knew, he could use a new pair, the way his were now, worn down at the heel, scuffed and scraped, on their last legs for the past couple of years. Jack could imagine how new ones would look on him and how he’d feel knowing he’d done that for Ennis, given them. Would Ennis smile that dumb smile that was more a twitch at the corner of his mouth, and then would he point out how Jack shouldn’t be wasting his money? At $120, still they weren’t cheap.

No way. He was going to hold onto his anger a lot longer than this. Ennis had said _I’ll buy whatever goddamned horse I feel like buying, you asshole,_ and then he’d gone and proved where Jack stood in his life by getting another horse. Jack shoved the boot back with its mate. He went over to the stool and started to yank off the ostrich skins. 

“May I assist you with that?” the sales clerk asked, boot jack in his hand. “Were you interested in a purchase?”

“I sure am,” Jack said, the wind whirling inside him again. 

Ten minutes later he was in a jewelry store, where he bought a genuine Taxco, Mexico turquoise and silver necklace that he’d send to Lureen the first chance he had. 

That night, he lasted past the cocktail hour, through the salad, and past the prime rib they put in front of every cattleman at the Association Awards banquet. But a man could take only so much. Right after the strawberry shortcake dessert was served, he pushed back his chair, leaned in to say to Andy, “See you tomorrow,” and walked out under the crystal chandeliers, way before Miss Texas even made an appearance. 

He thought of leaving the Riverwalk and seeing what he could find on the sidewalks of San Antone, to open himself up to the whole city. But the sound of a good band lured him down the paths to the Lone Star Ballroom instead, and he threw himself right in. He spent the evening alone drinking shots and Budweiser, and watching men dance with pretty women. 

*****

Ennis woke up stiff as hell, groaning, rolling over so he could put hands to his lower back, and with the clear memory of something Jack had said back on that day that was theirs, the day he’d moved in to the house on Prospect Drive in Amarillo. 

“I’ll never leave you again.” That’s what Jack had said. Almost six months ago now, since it was getting late in August, and they’d got together on February 28. 

Slowly, Ennis sat up and brushed away the saddle blanket that’d come up on his shoulders with him. He was glad that he’d woke up well before the sun showed and could spend extra time with Trouble. He’d skipped the day before, damn it, and he wasn’t gonna let Jack do that to him again, drive him to spend the night at a bar instead of doing what he needed to be doing, getting that gray horse ready for Janice on this coming Sunday. But even as he fed the horses, made sure they had plenty of water, spent time with the pinto again, and mucked out his stall, and even as he told himself over again that Jack was gonna come back cause he had to, damnit, he had his clothes and stuff here so there wasn’t any question, Ennis couldn’t convince himself it would happen. Nothing would be right with God’s green world if Jack didn’t come back, cause he’d never be able to get Jack to see the light if he didn’t show.

Work at the ranch wasn’t much better than it’d been the day before. It was even worse cause he wasn’t feeling too spry from not-much-sleep and too-much-whiskey. At lunchtime, he climbed the slope way past the foaling barn, way past where he often went at noontime, and then he sat for a while, staring off into space and not touching his food. He had to know what he’d say and where he’d take a stand. Jack had said that he hadn’t ever arrived, that Ennis couldn’t leave cause he wasn’t there yet. Ennis frowned and tried to get past how mad those words made him. Jack had said it like he meant it. 

But why was it that a man couldn’t find peace anywhere? There was Floyd climbing up, aimed directly at him, finding his way past the rocks. 

“Hey, Ennis,” he said. “Mind if I join you?”

Floyd could take that sound he made any way he wanted to, but Ennis had no doubt his silence was gonna be broken. 

The man surprised him, though. He opened the brown paper bag he was carrying and pulled out a sandwich and a can, and then he sat on the grass next to Ennis, chewing and swallowing, his eyes fixed on the east side of the Moreno Valley. 

Ennis followed his gaze, wondering what was so fascinating. He’d been looking inside, not outside. The hills rose up more gently on that side, the Blood of Christ mountains that sure did turn red at sunset. Some road noise came up to them, always some car or truck going someplace, but from where they were, he couldn’t see the highway or any other road. It was why he’d picked the place to start with, being away from it all. Over the months, he’d found he liked being on the upslope of the Buckminster property, higher than anything else, and he could think clearly there. Or at least more clearly, anyway. 

He glanced at Floyd, who seemed like a man with no care in the world, resenting him for it compared to him, a queer with man troubles. 

“What’s that?” Floyd asked, turning to him.

Ennis dipped his head. He hadn’t meant for that sound to come out of him. “Nothing.” 

He ate his food in a hurry, drained the orange juice he’d brought, and then he put the bottle on the ground between his legs. He leaned forward and crushed the plastic flat with the heel of his hand. It made a crinkling sound as the air whooshed out of it. When he looked up at the noise, to see what Floyd made of it, him acting that way, the man was leaning back on his hands, his head tilted up to look at the clouds. 

He should go back to work. On a ranch like this, even small as it was, there was always too much work and too few people to do it. But Ennis stayed. Finally he said, “How’s that hawk doing?” 

Floyd sat up and scratched the side of his round-jowled face. “Pretty good. I’m not going to let it even try to fly for quite a while yet, though.” 

“You need more money for its care?”

“No, Jack gave me enough to take me through.” 

A trick of the breeze brought the sound of a slamming door to his ears. Ennis watched while the tiny figure of Rocky left his Silverado, come home from wherever he’d been. BJ came out of the main stable and went up to him, looking like she was saying something. The two of them walked off toward the house, went around a corner and out of his sight. 

He thought of him and Alma, bright promise that had never been real, though he’d convinced himself it might be. Like a shiny penny, not worth much. He wondered about Floyd and his wife, the gal who’d run away from him with the man from Phoenix. He thought of him and Jack, and hated that he was carrying all this sick feeling around inside himself, like some woman laid low by her man. Fuck. But the feeling was there. 

He thought on that weird talk him and Floyd’d had, about the unanswerable questions. Huh. How come him and Jack were so different? Ennis didn’t need to talk to anybody except Jack, and it was real hard for him to understand that Jack had needed to spill his guts to the coach when he’d gone away, with no thoughts of ever seeing Ennis again. 

Ennis picked up a pebble and threw it down in front of him. It rolled for thirty feet before it came to a stop in the cascade of other pebbles that went with it. 

Jack had said that he was a coward, with no strength to go after him. Well, he’d showed that man, hadn’t he? He’d gone after him to Amarillo, and good had come from it, hadn’t it? This was good, what him and Jack had, their months here, better than anything he’d ever known.

He sat there and picked grass from next to the bottle he’d massacred, shredded the blades, thinking that at least he’d thought the months had been good. Maybe Jack didn’t think the same.

Floyd was getting to his feet. Ennis squinted over at him, cause the summer sun was surely bright. “Ready to go back to work?” Floyd asked.

“Be down soon.” 

He watched Floyd climb back down to the broodmares. It looked like maybe the old man was favoring his left leg, not surprising at the age of seventy-one. It was amazing how he carried on despite his years. 

Ennis hugged his legs and looked inside again. It was Thursday. If he left right now, got in his truck and took off for San Antonio, it’d take through to Friday for him to arrive, all worn out, and Jack would probably be mad as hell that he’d shown. Then he’d just have to turn around and drive back again, though maybe with the satisfaction of making that punch to the coach’s face real. 

But it would show Jack…. He wasn’t sure what it would show. 

He got up and followed where Floyd had gone. He didn’t know anything, except nothing was right. 

*****

They started on Friday evening with dinner at a restaurant called Gershwin’s, where a woman played soft music from behind a grand piano set up high where everybody could see her. She wore a long skirt and earrings that brushed her shoulders. Gary threw a kiss in her direction as they followed the maitre d’ to their table. 

“Know her?” Jack asked as he took his seat.

“She plays in the same orchestra as Jeffrey does, and her music has helped me seduce three men since I arrived here.” 

Jack chuckled. “Usually it takes more than a couple of songs, doesn’t it?” 

“That and a good meal at a place like this, not to mention my charming personality and other attributes. I tell you, John, this city has a thriving gay population, and I don’t know why I didn’t move here years ago.” 

Jack picked up the menu and couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows at the prices. “So, how about Jeffrey and you? Are you over him yet?” 

Gary waved his hand in the air, flicking his fingers. “History.” 

“Anybody else interesting come along?”

“Only you.” 

He looked at Gary over the price of rack of lamb. “I’m not interesting any more.” 

“I wouldn’t say that,” Gary said as he shook out his napkin. 

It was amazing that Gershwin’s was on the Riverwalk, because it didn’t feel like that to Jack. It was all glass and chrome and black shiny walls, an island away from how everybody walking along the river in shorts and t-shirts seemed intent on being loud and happy no matter what. Things here were slow, and hushed, and first class all the way. This was the kind of restaurant he’d only ever been to a few times before, when customers had been buying in Houston or Dallas. There sure wasn’t anything like this in Eagle Nest. He knew Gary was trying to make a point. Okay, point made, but Jack didn’t care. This was his Friday night out.

They put their heads together over the wine list, with Gary making fun at how little Jack knew about chardonnay and cabernet, but Jack didn’t care about that either. The wine steward came to set them up and pour out, looking from one to the other of them to try and figure out who got the privilege of taking the first swallow. Jack waved in Gary’s direction at the same time that Gary said _I’ll take it._

The first bottle disappeared before their steak au poivre and T-bone even arrived, so they got another. Jack felt himself relaxing with every sip and with every laugh that Gary’s wicked tongue surprised out of him. He’d forgot that, how his old lover had something to say about everybody. Even his comments about people Jack had never met or heard of were enough to loosen the tight band of unrest he carried across his chest. Gary told tales about the six foot eight inch center who was going to star on his team, and the university president, and the man he’d slept with the weekend before. 

Jack wanted to frown at the last one, but he didn’t. “You mean the one you threw in Ennis’s face?” 

Gary was sitting back in his leather padded chair, holding up his wine glass and admiring the color against the light. “One and the same. I begin to see your preference for certain, shall we say, physical characteristics. The man was a fantastic screw.” His gaze shifted over to Jack. “Like someone else I know. We sure had some good times, John.”

“We did.” 

“How’s Ennis?”

“Same as when you asked over lunch.”

“You haven’t talked to him since yesterday afternoon?”

Jack looked down at the white tablecloth, at the sprinkling of crumbs from when he’d broken open the crusty white bread. “No.” 

“You two are so much like an old married couple that I thought you’d talk to each other every day. Not so?”

No way was he going to let on how bad things were, that he’d left without even saying good-bye. He mocked Gary instead. “What do you know about being married? You’ve never been near a woman.” 

“Oh, I have a thought or two in my head. I’m glad to hear you two don’t act like I thought you did. We aren’t like men and women together. We’re gay men, and we shouldn’t act like the straights.” 

Jack chuckled. “I know a man, a good guy, a church-going man, who’d have a heart attack if he heard you comparing him to one of us, saying we might act the same.”

“Apples and oranges, John. Apples and oranges.” 

The waiter came then to take away their entrees and ask about dessert. Gary wanted key lime pie, Jack nothing but coffee, strong. It arrived steaming and was one of the best cups he’d ever tasted, though he was aware that he was in the mood to like anything that wasn’t New Mexico and the man he’d left behind there. 

“Where to next? It’s only ten o’clock.” 

Gary smiled like the Cheshire Cat in that book that Jack had tried to get Bobby to read. “I’m going to surprise you.” 

Jack nodded, deeper than he’d intended because the coffee was no match for the wine. “Okay.” 

“You’re going to like it. But first, I have something I want to ask you.” Gary hitched forward. “What is it you see in that man?”

“Oh, come on, we aren’t going down that road.” 

“I mean it, I really don’t see—”

“I’m not talking about me and Ennis, you old busybody.”

The grin from across the table was sudden and definite, like a lot of the statements that Gary made, but all he said was, “Waiter? Check, please.” 

The bonus provided to the university basketball coach had been spent on a red Mustang convertible that they waited to get from the valet parking service provided by the Crowne Plaza. Jack was well pleased that nobody from the convention was around to see him waiting out front under the strong lights with Gary. It was just as well that Andy wasn’t there to see him and Gary dressed up sharp in crisp open-necked shirts and jackets, both of them lounging back against the barricade, their hands in their pockets, though he would likely think they were on the prowl, looking for women. Which was probably something he wouldn’t approve of either. But it would be a disaster for Jack’s career at the feedlot for anybody to figure what he was really like. Including James Perez. Looking back at how he’d asked Ennis to go with him and James the past weekend to the gun show, he must’ve been crazy…. But he wasn’t going to look back, was he? 

“Have you ever been to a gun show?” he asked after they sped away from the curb and then stopped at an intersection. Since the top was down, Jack laid his arm along the edge of the door. He checked out the hazy sky and faint clouds over the city. There weren’t many stars, though.

Gary threw him a look. “Please, you’ve got to be kidding.”

“I went last weekend with a guy from the feedlot, and then afterward we went to a field where they had targets set up. I’ve never seen anybody handle a gun like that, including…. James is a crack shot. They even had some pistols there, and it was like he was the Lone Ranger. I was glad he wasn’t aiming at me.”

The light changed and Gary showed what he thought of that, along with how fast a Mustang could accelerate. Jack put his head back and let the wine take him along just as fast. His hand played with the wind outside the car, and Gary turned on the radio. 

This was…this was okay. This was the way a Friday night should be, driving fast in a sports car, without cares, sitting next to a man as gay as he was, not thinking about the man he’d left behind. 

_Ennis…._

_What do I see in you, anyhow?_

They drove to the edge of downtown and then beyond, through a seedy neighborhood and then past a big furniture store and an old-fashioned hotel. They parked in a self-serve lot that was almost full and walked a block past some shops to where a small sign, lit up, said “Rosie’s.” The single door with painted glass gave away nothing, though the faint thump of music came to them through the walls. It wasn’t hard to figure what Gary wanted to share with him. 

“Ready?” Gary asked as he reached for the handle. 

Jack went in first, to be hit by a wall of sound from a heavy-duty sound system and the sight of plenty of bodies on a crowded dance floor. One glance proved he was right, because all those bodies were male. 

Gary came up from behind him and slipped an arm around his waist, in an old familiar way that, even so, Jack stepped away from. Gary didn’t seem to notice. “John-boy, welcome to San Antonio’s best gay bar.” 

“You found one.”

“More than one, but this is the one I like the best. I couldn’t remember, have you been to one of these before?”

“Sure. The last seven, eight years, every time I went to Houston and one time in Dallas. I never found them anyplace else.” 

They claimed the last open booth up on the second seating level that arced around the dance floor. They’d got there at just the right time, when Rosie’s was starting to jump, getting crowded and noisy. Perfect. Ennis would shit a brick before he’d step foot in such a place. 

They tried to get the attention of the jailbait waiter, but he was too busy flirting three tables down, so Jack took that as an excuse to make his way over to the bar and get their drinks. He took the long way around, walking slowly, not elbowing his way into the crowd but waiting for it to part. For those few seconds before he plunged in, he felt like he was two different people in one body. It was all familiar and right, and yet it was all like some alien planet too. He was living the life with Ennis in Eagle Nest, last week painting his son’s bedroom like a good dad, wasn’t he? He’d given nobody the right to touch him except the man he was living with, but he’d practically hung a sign around his neck saying the opposite the minute he’d stepped through the innocent-looking doorway. That’s what a place like this was all about. Being here was…like it used to be after Ennis’s divorce, on one of his few trips roaming away from Lureen, his eye cocked for a likely man. He knew what this was all about and had been part of it more than once. He should stop being a wet blanket and move on in. He needed a drink.

He pushed past two young men, almost teenagers, kissing and pressed against each other like they were going to screw the next minute. Jack looked at them with a pang, remembering how it felt to be that young and desperate to stay in somebody’s arms. A certain someone’s arms that he’d had at that age for so few weeks. And he felt more. Maybe…satisfaction? That what was normal and natural for those kids wasn’t something that had to be hidden from his eyes. 

Most of the men in the crowd were younger than he was, and plenty looked like they visited the gym all the time, but there were still some who gave him the eye as he pushed his way past them. Jesus, it had been a while. More than a few gave him more than the eye, dusting a hand across his arm or shoulder, pretending to step out of his way and then instead brushing forward against him, and there was one most definite grope of his ass. The Friday Night Meat Market, that’s where he was with Gary. Everywhere he turned to look, there were men dancing, men talking it up, men kissing, men with hungry looks in their roving eyes. Men in plaid shirts, men in leather vests and pants, men with shades on, men with lipstick and mascara, men in wigs and dresses, men looking for other men. No gay man could be in this place for a minute without having the pulse of the music and the push of the energy lift him up in more ways than one. 

When he got back to the booth, Gary said, with a raised voice against the piped-in music, “It’s country western night. I scouted it just for you. The band’s not bad.” 

“You scouted it? No you didn’t.”

Gary laughed. “You know me too well. Happy accident, don’t you think? Cheers.” 

Gary was right. Five minutes later the band started a set and, over his preferred drink during this San Antonio dream, Johnnie Walker on the rocks, Jack admitted they sounded great. Of course, almost any music would probably sound good to him, as sloshed as he was getting. The group was from Atlanta, the drummer and singer were in hysterical Dale Evans drag, and it seemed half the men in Rosie’s knew all the words to their raunchy songs. Jack had brought back doubles; they set about proving they would need another round soon. 

Gary tried to say something to him, but in the noise Jack didn’t get it. “What?” he bellowed across the table. 

He never did find out what. Two friends of the coach’s showed up and joined them in the booth, squashing him and Gary together in the middle. But not for long. A line dance was going strong on the floor, and the hook-nosed guy sitting next to him, who Jack hadn’t caught the name of, hollered “Want to dance?” He didn’t wait for an answer but grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him down the steps, to where it hardly seemed two more bodies could fit. 

It wasn’t that it had been a long time since he’d done this: he’d never done this. He’d never been to a gay bar without keeping a weather eye out for a likely screw. Not needing to do that was freedom. He’d never been to a bar like this with people he knew, or at least that he’d been introduced to by somebody he knew. He’d never been to a bar like this since him and Ennis had got together, since that hole in his soul had been mended and the world looked different. And he sure hadn’t been to a bar like this since he’d got fucking mad and run away to Texas.

And…he liked to dance. He knew most of the line dances, managed okay with the two-step, and could do a Cotton-Eyed Joe like nobody’s business. 

He’d have to be dead not to have a good time, so to prove that he wasn’t, he did. This was nothing like the dead-ass affairs he’d gone to in Childress with Lureen. 

He said yes to every man who asked him, but he didn’t dance more than once with anybody. He didn’t need complications; he was just there to have fun and forget, forget. His head had whirled through a bunch of songs, and a bunch of guys’d had their hands on him dancing, who he’d had his hands on too, when he glanced up to where he’d left his drink in the booth. It was empty, but when the next song started it was Gary in front of him, holding his hand out, saying, “Isn’t there some old saw that you should dance with the person who brought you? Or save the last dance for me, something like that?” 

A small voice from really far away told him he shouldn’t take that hand, but the bar was so loud that he could barely hear his own thoughts. “This isn’t the last dance yet,” he said, and he grabbed the man and swung him into the rhythm of the music. 

It took a minute or two to adjust to their height difference, almost five inches, but once they had that sorted they took a fast turn around the floor with lots of fancy footwork that probably would have never worked if either of them was sober. The fact that it was Gary he was dancing with meant nothing to him. He told himself that the coach was like any of the other men who’d tried to slip their hands down to his ass, or angled to pull him close enough to get a good feel, and that he didn’t know just about every inch of that drink-of-water body, because they’d been together four fucking months, after all.

“I didn’t know you could dance,” Jack said loud enough to be heard, breathless because he’d been dancing hard for almost an hour and the song was fast.

Gary twirled him around with a hand over his head. “I didn’t know you could either. We never had the chance to find out.” 

The band took a break then, which at least Jack had the good sense to know was a good thing. Back at the booth there were the same two men that Gary knew, Danny and the other one, plus a new man who Jack recognized as one of those he’d two-stepped with early. Jack shoved himself in at one end, Gary did the same at the other end, and they snagged a waiter with drink orders. 

Danny lit two cigarettes and passed one over to the two-stepper. “I ran into another married man last weekend.”

Gary groaned. “What are you, a magnet for them?”

“I wouldn’t mind so much, except they never want to bottom.”

Jack looked over toward where there were still plenty of guys cutting a rug to the canned music. If he’d hooked up with Danny during his prowling days, he would’ve surprised him. Most of the time, that’s what he’d wanted, to get fucked. It seemed lately, though, that was changing. Looking down at Ennis’s face all sweaty—as sweaty as Jack was right now—and then sliding into him…. Jack’s dick, on automatic the last hour, throbbed at the memory.

“I wish the married men would stop pretending,” put in the hook-nosed guy who’d first pulled Jack onto the dance floor. “They want to have their cake and eat it too.”

“They want our freedom,” two-stepper said. 

Hook-nose agreed. “They get stuck with one woman, and the grass looks greener on our side of the fence.”

“John here,” Gary said, gesturing widely across the table at him, “John used to be married.”

The other three guys looked at him like he’d just stepped off a flying saucer. 

“For fifteen years,” Gary added.

“Seventeen,” Jack said.

“Christ,” Danny said. “How’d you do it? I wouldn’t live like that if you gave me a million dollars.”

“And now,” Gary drawled, “he’s partnered. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.”

“Never,” two-stepper said with a definite shake of his head. “You’ll never catch me being tied down like that.”

Jack thought of bringing up Jeffrey, taking a jab at the dreams that Gary’d had that hadn’t worked out, but the drinks showed up then, and they started talking politics. He let it drop. 

The next hour passed in a blur. He bought some cigarettes, not the brand him and Ennis had been smoking but any port in a storm, and he shared them with the other men when Danny ran out. The waiter brought him another scotch when he finished the first. No, that was the second he’d had at Rosie’s, which meant this was his third, and with his buzz getting loud maybe it’d be good to slow down some. He didn’t think about anything except what was happening to him that minute—the music rising and falling, the sound of Gary’s voice getting loud in an argument with two-stepper, the clink of the ice cubes in the glass when he raised it to his mouth. He was pretty sure he wasn’t thinking about Ennis, and that was good. He’d managed not to think about Ennis the whole trip so far, and he hadn’t given in to the ache inside that would take him over if he let it. Though he hoped the fucker was somehow watching from a hole in the clouds. _See here, here I am, lookit me, see where I am._

When the band started playing again, Danny next to him shoved him with an elbow and said, “Hey, good-looking, I haven’t danced with you yet. Want to give it a try?” 

It didn’t sound right to hear himself called that, because that’s what he used for Ennis, but Ennis didn’t dance—Jack had never asked him because he knew already what the answer would be. It brought a hard, sour chuckle to his mouth to even think of Ennis dancing... and then, in the next second, a need for exactly that pounded in him deep. Christ almighty, to have that man in his arms, to look into his guarded eyes that opened only for Jack, to move with him in the rhythm that he knew they could find if they looked for it…but Ennis didn’t give a fuck about him, did he? 

Jack ground out his cigarette and was happy to oblige Danny with a dance.

Him and Gary were back at the table a while later, both blowing smoke, when Gary said, “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Jack snorted. His legs were stretched out straight under the booth, and his spine was as relaxed against the seatback as it could be. “You’re younger than me.” 

“Not by much. It’s late, and I haven’t shown you my house yet.” Gary pulled the ashtray over and flicked ash into it. “What do you say we go over to the house? Before I drive back to your hotel and the convention.” 

Jack made a face at the reminder. Checking his watch was something he didn’t want to do and hadn’t done since they’d stepped into Rosie’s. But it was Friday night. Tomorrow a plane would leave for Angel Fire, and he still hadn’t talked to Gary about staying over. 

He looked down at his wrist. It wasn’t Friday anymore. It was Saturday morning, one-twenty, and Andy and him were supposed to be at a sum-up meeting at nine o’clock. 

Jack ran his hand through his hair. “Maybe just stay here until closing time.” 

“Oh, come on. I’m not the big bad wolf,” Gary said. 

“No, but you sure have big teeth,” Jack said, feeling pretty good that he could come up with that, considering it was a little hard to think straight. 

“I got a great deal on the townhouse. It’s something like yours was in Amarillo. Come on, John. You’ve stirred up the natives here enough, don’t you think?”

What the hell. The least he could do was look at Gary’s new house. He heaved himself to his feet and reached down to drain the dregs of the scotch left in the glass. “Let’s go,” he said.

Walking back outside was like stepping from Oz back to Kansas, from color and laughing and noise to pools of white light under streetlamps and silence except for the sound of their feet against the sidewalk. The air was rich as he breathed it in, strange to have it not be tobacco-scented, and though it was hot since it was Texas in August, still the brush of air against his face felt good. Jack put his head down and watched the toes of his brand new ostrich leather boots. Left, right, left, right. It felt like a year since he’d left Eagle Nest, but it’d only been three days. And this night felt like three days in itself, or a bubble out of time, set apart from the rest of his life and even his stay in this city. His ears were ringing, and his throat was sore from smoke and shouting. 

“That was a good night. I’m glad we went there,” Gary said as they got into the Mustang. 

Jack pulled on his seatbelt, not something he did all the time, but he had enough wits left to know that Gary might not be the straightest driver this night. 

“Me too,” he said. It was true. 

Gary’s place was not too far, ten or fifteen minutes around the north loop, and the ride helped clear his head some. Even so, when they pulled up under a live oak tree in a big development of townhomes, Jack got out feeling like his head was stuffed with cotton.

“Nice,” Jack said as he looked around at the landscaping while Gary fished for the right key. “Homeowner’s association?”

“The dues are killing me, but it’s worth it. These houses keep their resale value.” 

“You just got here. You won’t be selling anytime soon.” 

Inside was familiar-looking, since he knew Gary’s furniture, the books on the bookshelf, and the fancy twenty-seven inch TV with a Betamax set up in the corner. All of it was arranged differently, though. He said the right things that he figured Gary wanted to hear before collapsing on the black leather sofa. 

“Get you a drink?” Gary asked from the kitchen. “I’m having some Macallan Scotch, the genuine article. Or I’ve got some beer if you’d like.” 

“Think I’ll pass,” Jack said. He fought to not drop his head back against the cushion and zone out. The night was starting to catch up with him. He put his feet up on the glass and chrome coffee table that he remembered and settled his hands over his stomach. He looked over at the TV remote but it was too far to reach without moving, and he didn’t want to move. 

Gary stayed where he was for a while, and like it was from another house, Jack heard the sounds of the cap coming off the bottle, the booze being poured, and some swallowing. Some more pouring. Then Gary came and stood over him, holding a full rocks glass. He looked down with a smile. “Why don’t you put your feet up and get comfortable?”

“Thanks.” Jack yawned. “I think I will.” 

Gary sat down next to him with a thump, like a newborn lamb all uncoordinated, and Jack thought of laughing at him but couldn’t find the energy to do it. 

“Nothing…nothing on TV this late,” Gary said. Some more scotch disappeared. 

“S’okay.” Jack’s eyes drifted closed. 

There was some shifting of the weight next to him on the cushion. He lifted his eyelids enough to peek and saw Gary lean forward to put his glass down on the table. Carefully. 

“There,” Gary said. He clapped his hands to his knees as if he’d accomplished something good. Then he turned toward Jack and kissed him. 

For about two seconds Jack was only surprised. More seconds passed while he remembered the taste of Gary’s mouth, how they used to romp in bed, and how at one time he’d tried to tell himself they could make a life together. Gary pressed forward, showing he meant this seriously, and his hand came up around Jack’s neck. Jack, feeling and remembering, gave a little groan and opened so their tongues touched and slid together.

He’d been on the edge of a hard-on all evening. Taking Gary in like this brought him over the edge, because it was Saturday morning early after a Friday night late, they’d been out drinking together, had a good meal, Gary had made him laugh, and there’d been a place for him there even though it wasn’t the place he wanted. Kissing, being kissed, the way Gary’s fingers left his neck and came over to cover his ear as they kissed, he remembered that, it was familiar, there was force of habit in what they were doing because they’d done this before. Gary tasted smooth and a little wild, like the fine scotch he’d just swallowed.

But…but...Jack tried to separate himself from what his body was suddenly waking up for. He hadn’t meant this. This wasn’t the way the night was supposed to end. It hadn’t been on his mind except to not do this thing and to make sure it didn’t happen. He opened his eyes wide to see Gary’s closed tight. What the fuck was he doing here, kissing the hell out of Gary? This was going to lead straight to the bedroom upstairs, to one more desperate fuck in one more of Jack’s desperate attempts to find what he knew, he damn well knew, he could only find in one man. 

The kiss went on another couple of seconds until there was a natural stopping point, and they parted to draw breath. Gary twisted around so they were side by side, half-sprawled against the sofa back, face to face, but he reached out so his fingers brushed against Jack’s cheek. There was a small smile on his face, showing some satisfaction at what was happening.

Jack pulled away. “No,” he said. 

It was like he hadn’t even been heard. He was kissed again, but he pulled back right away this time, so it was nothing. 

“Nope, let’s not do this.”

Gary hitched closer. “Ah, come on, John, we can….” 

“Hey, beanpole, you’re getting confused. We don’t do this anymore.”

“Sure we can.” 

“When we’re this drunk we might think so, but we don’t.”

“What?” 

“I said….” But he’d forgotten already what he’d said, the exact words. “Come on, let’s see what’s on TV.” 

Jack pushed himself up so he was sitting straight and looked around for the remote again. He needed to get his mind off what might have been, what wasn’t going to be, and the way his dick sure wished he would mind his own business and let it do what came naturally….

Gary pulled him back to where he’d been. This time his long arm went around Jack’s shoulder, so he was in close, this close to another kiss and a lot more. 

“You’re thinking too much,” Gary whispered into his ear. “Just go with the flow. Go with the way we used to be. Remember?””

Shit. Gary was making this hard for him, in more ways than one. Jack managed to get out of the hold on him and stood up. 

Careful of his balance, he turned around to look down at his ex-lover. “We’re friends, get it? That’s it.”

Gary stood up too, joining him in the little space between couch and coffee table. He looked well-kissed, his lips soft and a little swelled up, and Jack felt guilty for letting that kiss go on longer than it should have. “That’s okay, that’s good,” Gary said, smooth and careful. “I like being friends with you. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fuck like we used to.”

“Yes, it does.” 

“No, it doesn’t, John,” Gary said, like he was talking to a first grader. “That’s the whole point of being gay. Gay men like us get to act the way we want to. We don’t need to stick to one man or one woman, because we don’t make babies. We get to screw a different man every night.” 

Even when he’d been out on the road, desperate, lonely, looking, he hadn’t…. “I don’t want to screw anybody tonight.” 

Gary grinned at him. “Sure you do. Or you want to get screwed. You told me you did a minute ago, because hard cocks don’t lie.” Gary reached out as if to put his hand between Jack’s legs, but Jack batted it away. 

“Jesus, Gary, what’s got into you tonight?” 

“You can, if that’s what you prefer. Come on, don’t be a prick tease. You’ve been saying yes all night long. Don’t say no now.”

“Just because we had drinks and danced one dance doesn’t mean—”

Gary made a sudden move that had Jack tensing, because the man had a temper on him and outweighed him by more than fifty pounds, but he was only leaning over and reaching for his drink. He drank like he was thirsty, quickly, and then put the glass down again. He spread his hands wide, using his persuade-them voice that Jack remembered well. 

“Think about it. This could be really good for both of us. You could come visit every now and then, stay with me here, and it can be a little vacation for the two of us away from the rest of our lives. Or better yet. Leave that stick-in-the-mud partner of yours and come live in San Antonio full-time, where you can dance at the clubs whenever you want and have your pick of men. You can be free.” 

Somehow Gary had got close again. He ran his fingers down the length of Jack’s arm and took hold of his hand. 

“We wasted a lot of time when we were younger, not being connected to what’s out there. But we can make up for it now and live the good life. You can go back to your farm in West Godforsaken if you’ve got to, but for now, for tonight, why not live the way you were made? Why not take advantage of what you’re offered? Come on. Come upstairs with me. I’ll show you a good time.” 

Staring over Gary’s shoulder, Jack heard every word. It all sounded good, and it all made sense…but for somebody else, not for him. He shook his head. “It’s not gonna happen like that, Gary.” 

“Oh, you are such an asshole, John Twist. Get with it!” 

Gary flopped to sit back onto the couch and pulled Jack down with him. They ended in a tangle, Jack mostly on top, Gary trying to press him into another kiss but mainly trying to get his hand between them to grab Jack’s dick. Jack did his damndest to get away and stand up again, but his head was spinning. It was hard to get his arms and legs to work together. 

“Damn it, Gary, I said no way!”

Jack jerked back but Gary was reaching around his shoulder by then, determined. A second later Jack was going the opposite direction no matter what his intentions. _Bam!_ With no balance or control, his face hit Gary’s, cheek to cheek, and shit, it hurt. Pain streaked across and into his nose as he fell back, gasping, finally separate, next to Gary on the couch. 

He sat there in the sudden stillness and panted, anger welling up from a knot well-hidden inside him. It wasn’t even halfway okay anymore because Gary had taken it too far, the dickwad, and shit, Jack shouldn’t have let it get to this point. Anger at himself poured out for being such a fuckup, and then pure mad at everything else all at once: at his dad he hated, at the guys who’d thrown him down in the dirt on the rodeo circuit, at L.D. who’d never given him the time of day, at Gary because he wasn’t the friend he needed, and at Ennis, Ennis, Ennis. 

“Christ, you asshole,” Jack growled. He got himself standing again and grabbed at the scotch, overbalancing and having to catch himself with a quick hand against the table. But the glass was in his hand. He dumped everything in it over Gary’s head, ice cubes and all, and then threw it across the room so it smashed against the far wall. 

Shit, his nose was bleeding on top of his cheekbone throbbing. He wiped blood from his face on his shirt sleeve and aimed a finger at the man sitting in front of him, a man who was gasping wet and holding a hand to his eye. “I’m leaving. Don’t follow me, you asshole.” 

The Mustang’s engine was purring in the parking lot before he saw the shaft of light that meant Gary had got up and opened the front door, probably just then realizing Jack had grabbed the keys on his way out. But Jack wasn’t stopping for more words or anything else. He gave the car gas and left.

*****

Ennis stared up at the first stars showing in the sky and fought to get his breath back. He felt the hard ground against his shoulders. He felt where a rock dug into his butt. He felt most of all where his head had hit against another rock. He was lucky he wasn’t out cold. 

After a minute he moved, testing, and then he groaned out loud, though it didn’t do him any good and there was nobody there to hear him. Everything hurt, but especially his head. And especially his ankle. Maybe it was broken and he’d be in big trouble. He might not be able to walk or do his job. He might not be able to do both his jobs, because there was an important one, the job he had to do to get Jack all the way back. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to even get back to the house. 

Ennis could hear Trouble bounding across the grass, giving a kick now and then before finally settling under the tree up by the stable. Damn horse. He probably felt proud that he’d got rid of the man trying to ride him. 

Feeling almighty sorry for himself, Ennis sat up and rubbed the back of his head. Damn, a knot was coming up already, sore as could be. Then he pushed himself off the ground and took a couple steps. Guess he’d live. 

The sun had set ten minutes before. He’d been trying to wring out every second he could get on Trouble and had meant to stay up on the horse for as long as he had any light at all. At least until a bat had come out of nowhere. It had almost flown under the horse’s nose. Ennis couldn’t really blame Trouble for startling, when he’d been startled himself. 

He pushed his lips together and started walking to where the horse stood swishing his tail under full saddle and bridle. Ennis hobbled, cause the ankle was throbbing, but he had to get to that horse. Trouble need to be calmed, stripped down, brushed, watered, and turned out for the night. The horse needed to be ready for Ennis to work with him again early the next morning, as early as could be and then all through the day. It would be Saturday tomorrow. Morgan had called on the phone tonight right after Ennis had come in from the ranch. They’d set up that him and Janice would stop by Sunday after lunch for her to see Trouble and ride him for the first time. Morgan had asked to talk to Jack. Ennis had said that he was traveling on business like it was a normal thing to say, and not like the ground he’d been walking on had suddenly disappeared, leaving him flailing.

He managed to get close enough to Trouble to grab his trailing rein. No more riding tonight. Ennis started the two of them on a slow trip back to the stable. Though he felt hollow inside to think of it, he knew there was no way things could work out the way he’d hoped they would on Sunday. He’d had some dumb picture in his head. He’d thought of Morgan smiling and Janice, whatever she looked like, getting up on the horse and riding down the field. 

The truth was that he’d known damn well for a full week that it wasn’t gonna happen. He couldn’t let Morgan’s wife, Jack’s friend’s wife, ride that horse free, on her own, especially her being a beginner, and with Trouble still being touchy now and then. He was better, especially the last days. He wasn’t the kind of horse that Fancy was, mainly mean-spirited. And he wasn’t like Delilah, strong, independent, and, Ennis had finally concluded, a whole lot stupid. Trouble wasn’t headstrong or dumb, only green. Ennis would have to keep Trouble on the lead rein and walk horse and rider around. It would scorch his pride, not having the horse ready when he’d told Morgan clear and plain that he would. He guessed he wasn’t too good in the horse training business, cause he sure had reached for farther then he’d been able to grab. He needed more time with Trouble, it was simple as that. Another couple weeks should do it, and he shouldn’t have told Morgan otherwise. 

But there’d still be Sunday. He’d been looking toward it the way a plant aimed its head to the sun, trying to think of only presenting the horse, trying not to fix on Jack showing that day. Jack. It felt like he’d been gone three months instead of three days, or maybe like those four years they’d gone without each other, wandering in the desert. Ennis wasn’t shamed to own the feeling he had of needing Jack to come home soon.

Trouble snorted as he tied him to the post and went to take off his saddle. _That’s right,_ Ennis thought, _soon ain’t soon enough._ He needed Jack now, this minute, looming up out of the dark like he’d done when Ennis had driven up with two horses in his trailer. This time it would be different. Somehow he’d take them off in another direction, like the way it used to be. Ennis looked into the shadows of the yard, the hair on his arms standing up as he thought, _maybe Jack’s here right now…._ But of course he wasn’t. Sunday. Jack had said he was staying over until Sunday. 

Him and his damn fool imaginings. 

Thirty minutes later Ennis was back in the house, the door locked behind him, and ten minutes after that he was stripped naked in the bathroom. He stepped carefully into the hot water of the tub and settled back with a wince and a sigh. He looked down the length of his body to his ankle and lifted it to see better. It was swelled up on one side like an orange. He lifted it some more to prop his leg up on the side of the tub, cause it didn’t seem to him that hot water would do his throbbing soreness much good, even if all his other joints were crying out for it. He’d ice it down in a little while. 

His hand went down to his dick, just rested over it, cause he sure didn’t feel like pulling his pud. He’d not touched himself since Jack had gone. Sitting here in the bathtub, no way, cause it reminded him….

A long time ago, when he’d been just a little kid, his dad had taken long baths on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes Ennis had gone in there to piss when he could have done it outside at a time his mom wasn’t looking, but he’d wanted to go where Daddy was. There was a time or two or three when his daddy was sleeping in the tub and he’d tiptoed over and stared down at what a man looked like, what he would look like when he was grown up too. Those times, what his dad had seemed enormous to him. His dick and his balls seemed to float on the water like they were islands.

One time, little-boy-Ennis had thought he’d caught movement and he’d looked up fast, but his daddy was still sleeping. Another day, the same thing had happened. He’d looked up but this time Daddy’s eyes were narrowed at him, and the next second he’d been hit good on the side of the head. That was the end of his man-sized, dick-looking days. 

Resting back in his own bathtub now, Ennis wondered if his daddy had really been as big as his memory painted, or if that was only in his kid’s mind. He thought he really was, had a big dick that he hadn’t passed on to his second son. He’d passed on something else, though, this need Ennis had for a man, cause however that worked it must come from the ma and dad somehow, right? If his daddy saw the queer coming out in Ennis when he was a kid, it must have made him awful mad, knowing he’d had his part in it. 

Last night, sleeping alone in the bed, he’d dreamed again. It had been mainly running with Jack away from Daddy, who was screaming and then laughing. There’d been some big wall that Ennis had hit full on, knocking him back. Then Jack went down on all fours and leaped over it like an animal, taking Ennis with him, and then there’d been the most amazing feeling of flying through the air. Up and up and then over and down, getting away except they’d landed in fire, and Jack had disappeared in flame. Ennis had woke up with sweat dripping into his eyes. 

The water was cooling, so he turned on the hot tap. It squeaked and shuddered when he did. The pipes in this old house were showing their age. 

He leaned back again and contemplated the tile over the faucets and the dirty grout in between, feeling the weight of living without Jack settle on him heavily. His ankle throbbed, but it seemed the whole rest of him had been throbbing for days. Big pulses, big booms like giant heartbeats that stretched his whole self out to the southeast, toward where Jack was now, on this Friday night. It hurt bad to think of what Jack might be up to this minute. 

He’d go crazy if this went on much longer. He needed Jack with him right now. Ennis needed to hear him talking no matter what he said. It seemed the sound of Jack Twist’s voice had been in his mind from that time outside Aguirre’s trailer, but he needed it more now that they’d been sharing the days and the nights in this house. The place echoed with Jack’s words, but Ennis didn’t want echoes. 

That night, sleep was hard to come by with nothing complete in him and a hurt foot. He startled awake twice, thinking he’d heard something dangerous in the house. The second time he even got up and limped through, checking the doors and windows, cursing that Tag and his friends had made him skittish like some old maid. He climbed back into bed and stayed where he was for more than a full hour, aching in body and soul, thinking of how Jack had looked when Ennis had brought the pinto home, mad and sad. He should have left that horse where it was, and then Jack wouldn’t have said that nobody cared what he thought, when that wasn’t true, didn’t he know that? 

Ennis rolled over and put both hands under the pillow. Guess Jack didn’t know. 

Maybe Ennis hadn’t talked clearly enough, or maybe Jack figured, because of the horses, that…. It was just Ennis working. 

He tried to find better memories than Jack sad-eyed, but he had to reach further back than the last weeks, and that was no good. He finally fell back to sleep again to messed up flashes of bad dreams. 

The sun was peeking over the mountains, creating long shadows out in the yard, and Ennis was pouring his Saturday morning coffee into his thermos when the phone rang.

*****

The San Antonio city council was fighting over water distribution. There’d been a murder on the south side of town, and a cop who’d stopped to help a broken down car at midnight had got sideswiped and was in critical condition in the hospital. The Republicans had held their presidential nominating convention in Dallas, and it’d just ended. The _San Antonio Express-News_ was filled with stories of Ronald Reagan going for his second term, plus how some protestor burning the American flag had got arrested. The world was taking no heed of Jack Twist and his aching head and aching heart. It kept going on.

It was 8 a.m. Saturday morning. He was sitting alone in a hotel restaurant booth. The hostess had tried to put him next to a window where the sun shone through, but he’d let her know he’d prefer a nice dark corner, thank you kindly, ma’am. Jack could hardly see straight, but he was trying to drum up interest in what the newspaper gave him to read. That had to be healthier than what he was thinking. It wasn’t working. 

He picked up his coffee and took it in, black and strong and hot, but that didn’t help either. Nothing would, including the few hours of sleep he’d finally managed right before dawn. He’d held off this feeling for three whole days and four whole nights, since he’d stomped away from Ennis and his horse Trouble, but he was feeling it full now. 

It was like his right arm had been cut off. Him without Ennis, when he’d thought his dreams of them together were finally coming to be real, thought they were real…. He couldn’t ignore the bleeding anymore by clutching at his anger like a shield.

_Ennis…._

Blood was pouring out of him now, and he knew it. He felt the drain as he thought of his angry words when they’d faced off. He’d said it wasn’t him Ennis needed, just some man. Maybe it was true. Maybe Ennis didn’t feel about him the way he felt about Ennis. But he did feel, strong, stronger now than even when he’d been a lovesick nineteen-year-old.

His pain this morning was the fault of the dancing last night, when he’d imagined taking Ennis’s hand, stepping up against his body, and looking into his man’s eyes. The two of them moving together because they both wanted to. That’s what he’d thought about for hours as he lay awake. His need for that Wyoming man made the palms of his hands prickle, and he wanted to reach across the bed for him. Even though Ennis had hurt him bad. Even though he didn’t know if he could ever get Ennis to see him, Jack, all of him. Even though he didn’t know if Ennis would ever calm down enough so the life they led together wasn’t a game of how much Ennis could hide, how little he could act in the world, and how many times he could say “no.”

He put the coffee cup down and forced his fingers past a sort of numb clumsiness to turn the newspaper page. There wasn’t ever going to be a headline in his life that said _Prominent Gay Citizen Announces Liquidation of his Horse Training Business,_ would there? He ran a finger across a line talking about how some land was being set aside for wildlife under the Open Spaces Act, not seeing the words, feeling three times the fool for wanting from a man who could not give. 

The hostess seated four more groups of men on this last morning of the Cattle Feeders convention while Jack stared at meaningless marks on a paper. 

“Your breakfast, sir,” the waitress said. She slipped a plate of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, and sausage onto the table, and then a side order of pancakes too. “Can I get you anything else? I’ll refill your coffee as soon as the new pot’s ready.” 

Jack took up his fork and went to it, relieved to have something take his mind away from circling around his tender, throbbing center. He always felt better after a night with the bottle if he had a big breakfast the next morning. 

The food went down okay, because he’d never had a chancy stomach. He forced his thoughts to what he needed to do to get ready for the plane ride home that afternoon. He didn’t even know when they were due to leave. It would’ve been crazy to stay over until Sunday, and he’d known that all along, hadn’t he? A thousand dollar airfare and traveling all day Sunday for just another night. Anyway, staying over with Gary would’ve been a big mistake. 

He looked up as a tall figure stopped by his table. Talk about a big mistake, looking down at him right then. 

Gary gestured awkwardly toward the empty side of the booth. “Mind if I sit down?”

Jack turned away and shoveled hash browns into his mouth. “Okay.” He swallowed as Gary slid onto the seat. He guessed he looked like Gary did, red-eyed, puffy-faced, and strung-out, the remains of being wasted the night before. There was a bruise coming up next to Gary’s eye that wasn’t too different from the one that showed on his own cheek, running up to the side of his nose. “How’d you get here?”

“I took a taxi.”

“What I should’ve done last night.” Jack reached into his jacket’s inside pocket and brought out the car keys and the valet parking ticket. “Here.” He handed them across. “Thanks for the loan.”

“You didn’t give me much choice.”

Jack rested both hands on the edge of the table. “And neither did you.”

At least Gary looked embarrassed. “Listen, I…. I came to get the car, but I wanted to say I’m sorry about last night.” 

“Good.”

“But you did lead me on.” 

Jack sighed and attacked his pancakes. 

“And I was drunk,” Gary said. 

“You want some of these?”

“You know I can never eat on Saturday morning after a Friday night like we had.”

“I guess I forgot.”

“John….”

“What?”

“What I said last night…. I know it wasn’t presented in the best of circumstances, but I meant it. I can’t imagine that you’re happy with Ennis. Why not—”

“It’s not for you to judge, is it?”

Gary plowed on. “Why not come live here? I bet you could get a job easily, with your sales skills.”

“I like the job I’ve got.”

“I know, but you could—”

Gary sat back as the waitress came by with Jack’s coffee and a cup for the man who’d joined him. She poured for both of them and then left, leaving a space of silence between them that Gary wouldn’t let stand. 

“Last night, we both had a good time.” Gary was talking quietly, intensely, and Jack knew he really meant it. “A really good time. I could see you were enjoying yourself. Ennis will never give that to you. You’re going to be buried in the wilds of horse country until you forget how to live. Please, think about this.” 

He did think about it. He’d been thinking about it every waking moment since he’d roared out of the parking lot in a borrowed Mustang, going seventy when forty would’ve been safe. 

Jack had to face facts. There were some things he’d never have. He’d never dance with Ennis. He’d never go to a bar with Ennis where men gathered to be with other men. He’d never stand up with him to do everyday things like he’d done with Lureen, because Ennis didn’t see them together in the same way he did. 

He wanted too much, and he didn’t know if he could live with what he would get instead. 

Jack took the paper from where it was spread out between him and Gary, put it on the bench next to him, and shoved his plate aside. He folded his hands together in front of him and tried to explain. 

“You and me, Gary, we want different things. You’ve found something that you want here, and that’s good. Maybe you’ll be happy, and I hope you are. But me….” He looked off to the side, to the collection of sugar packets, salt, and pepper. “I don’t want to be free. Not now, I don’t think ever. I got tied down when I was young, and that’s just the way it is.” 

He heard the waitress talking to some people in the booth behind him, saying good morning, pouring them coffee, and getting their order for oatmeal, toast, eggs, a bowl of strawberries. Him and Ennis, when they were up on Brokeback, they’d eaten beans for breakfast more than a few times. It hadn’t mattered.

Fingers covering his folded hands surprised him. He brought his attention back to Gary, who had reached across the table with a look on his face that he’d hardly ever seen there. 

“Okay,” Gary said softly. “I guess I’ll never understand it, but okay.” He smiled a small smile, gave his hand a squeeze, and pulled back. “Sorry about your nose.” 

Jack felt where it was tender. “I’ll be okay. Sorry that I…led you on. I didn’t mean to.” 

Jack went back to eating, and Gary sipped his coffee, making a face and complaining that he made it better with fresh ground beans in his own coffeemaker in his own kitchen. Three minutes later, Jack looked up to see Andy walking toward them, not being led by the hostess but coming in on his own, obviously fixed for Jack’s table. “My boss,” he said quietly to Gary, so he’d be warned how to act and what to say. 

But of course Gary always did take it that step too far, the way he was. After introductions he stood up to leave, saying, “I need to go and gas up my car. Besides, I imagine you have all sorts of cattle-related things to do. Maybe you’ll look me up again the next time you’re in town.” He extended his hand. “Friends?”

 _Damn it, Gary, Andy’s here…._ But Jack took that hand, shook it, and said the only thing he could say. “Friends.” Andy did glance at the two of them and then turned away, but that was no wonder, considering they both were sporting bruises and looking like something the cat had drug in. 

Andy ordered a wedge of cantaloupe when the waitress came, explaining that Carolyn had put him on a diet and it was time he stuck to it. Jack nodded and devoted himself to trying to read the paper again and sharing the sections with his boss. He pretended to take in the articles, all while wishing he could go home and find the Ennis he’d started out with back in the winter. Back then, they’d each thought they’d done all the hard work needed. They were finally going to live together, weren’t they? Back when he’d said he’d never leave Ennis again. 

He saw that Andy was looking across at him. He tried to think of what he’d say when he got asked where the mark on his face had come from, but Andy went back to the sports section without opening his mouth. Jack was glad that his boss didn’t feel the need to talk this morning. It was unusual for him, but Jack needed the quiet. 

He was fucking tired. 

When they paid at the cash register and walked together out to the glittering lobby, Andy said they should each check out and leave their baggage with the bellhop. That way they could get out of the session when it ended at noon and leave for the airport right away. “The final panel starts in fifteen minutes,” Andy said as he glanced at his watch. “I’ll meet you there, okay?” 

Up in his room, Jack checked himself out in the mirror, but there wasn’t anything he could do except splash water on his face, brush his teeth, and wish he had some Advil for general, all-around crappiness. He moved around the room slowly, getting stuff out of the closet and putting it in his suitcase. It was a miracle he’d packed in a way that made sense on Tuesday night, considering the state he’d been in. 

One last glance around the room, a check of the bathroom where he found a t-shirt he’d hung on a hook, and he was ready to go. He settled his hat on his head and was reaching for the doorknob when the phone rang. 

He hesitated, not up to talking with anybody, but it just might be…. Not that Ennis would call him any more than he would leave Jack a note on his pillow, but Jack walked over to the nightstand and picked up the receiver anyway. 

“Hello?”

“Hello, Jack?” 

There was a moment when everything stopped. Then time started up again, all of time, and everything it held that he didn’t want to face. Jesus God, he knew that voice, as old-lady quavery as it might be. By the time his butt hit the mattress something inside him knew what must have happened. 

“It’s Faye, Jack. Are you there?”

“Yeah. What’s…. How’s….”

“Lureen….” His ex-wife’s mother could barely get out the name of her only child. Jack listened to her shudder as she breathed. “Jack, she…

_Don’t let her say the words, please not those words, I’m not ready to hear them._

“She died yesterday.” 

“But…but….” 

It couldn’t be true. How could Lureen be dead when she’d ridden into his life so strong? 

“Jack? Did you hear me?”

Lureen was alive in his mind. She’d said _I’m pregnant, Jack_ and _Bobby looks like you_ and _Let’s get away for a weekend, Hot Springs would be nice_ and she’d stood in the kitchen in Eagle Nest and said _Everything will be fine._

Stupidly, he latched on to what he thought he’d known. He knew it was stupid even as he said it. Lureen couldn’t be…. “The doctors said another three or four months.”

“I know. But the good Lord took her. She went in her sleep.”

“Her sleep.” 

“She was taking naps in the afternoon. Bobby came home for dinner and….”

“Jesus,” Jack breathed. “Bobby found her?” 

“He called me. He’s with us here now.” 

His boy. His son, close to being grown but still far from grown, slamming the door like he always did when he got in from wherever he’d been, calling out _Mom?_ Bounding up the stairs two at a time in his teenaged way, to where Lureen, Jack’s not-for-him Lureen who’d stood in the animal preserve parking lot and said that Ennis should take care of Jack, she was….

Jesus God Almighty. It seemed his tongue could barely move. “Faye, I….” Tears slipped down his cheeks and one sob escaped, so much pressure in his throat and chest pushing it out. 

“Please, Jack, don’t. I can’t keep talking to you if you let go, cause I’ve got more calls to make.” 

Of course, the bastard L.D. would put that on her shoulders. Wasn’t there anybody else who could’ve made these calls, not her mother telling folks her little girl was gone? But Lureen had always been Daddy’s girl more than anything else, and Jack could imagine the old man on this black day. For all his bluster, L.D. wasn’t strong. “Okay, okay,” Jack said, gulping air, getting control of himself. “I’m….”

“I thought you’d want to know.”

“’Course,” he mumbled into the phone. “I can’t believe…. Was hoping that there’d be…. Remission.”

“I know. She didn’t seem….”

“I saw her two weeks ago, and she looked good. She wasn’t in any pain then. Was she—”

“Three weeks ago.” 

“What?”

“You were here three weeks ago.”

“Oh.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. It hurt, but he hardly noticed. “Right. I…. Was she in pain?”

Faye choked, coughed for a good minute, and finally got herself back to being able to talk, though now she was hoarse on top of the worst kind of heart-shot hurting. “No. That’s the good thing, what the Lord did for her. No pain.” 

“Thank God.” He swallowed. “How’s Bobby?” He didn’t even know if Lureen had kept her word. She’d promised him that she would tell Bobby what was facing her, and then, as she’d put it, it would be Jack’s turn. She’d tell Bobby that his daddy was living with another man, sleeping in the same bed, and doing things no high school boy could think about without being sick to his stomach. 

“Let me talk to him,” Jack said, maybe the bravest words he’d ever spoken, but his son had to be in the worst shape, and faggot or no faggot, Jack had to be there for his boy.

“No,” Faye said, and Jack was only human. Some part of him was glad to hear her say that. “He’s sleeping now. We were up most of the night, the three of us, and soon we’re going to the funeral home to pick out a casket. Let him sleep.”

He hadn’t even thought that far. “Oh. When….”

“The funeral will be Monday morning. The viewing on Sunday night.” 

“So soon? I don’t—”

“Jack,” Faye said, cutting him short. “This is so hard. The sooner the better, for all of us.”

“Sure, sure. Okay.” He was bent over on himself, the receiver pressed to his ear, his other hand gripping his head, everything coming down on him. “I’m in San Antonio,” he said. “I can rent—”

“I know where you are! I called the number Lu had in the book, where you live now in New Mexico, and that man answered.” 

Oh. Jesus, he had to pull himself together. He hadn’t even thought of how Faye had known to call him at the hotel, but she must’ve talked to Ennis, that man.

“Okay. Good. I can—”

“Good? Good? How can you say….” Faye choked again, though she didn’t start coughing. Jack had an image of her holding a white tissue to her mouth, her worn eyes red from her tears. “I’m sorry,” she said after a while. “I can’t seem to catch my breath. The man you are living with in New Mexico told me you were in Texas.” 

“I’ll rent a car and be there as soon as I can. This afternoon for sure.” 

“I knew you’d want to be here.”

“Of course…. Bobby…. And, Faye, seventeen years we were together.”

“She was forty-one,” Faye managed to get out. “I had my darling for just forty-one years.” 

Jack couldn’t talk for a while, taking on his mother-in-law’s feelings on top of his own. Lureen, gone. 

“I’ve got other calls to make,” she said when the silence got thin. 

“I’ll see you this afternoon.” 

“All right.”

The line went dead. 

After a while the phone got noisy, making that sound it had to let a person know the receiver had not been hung up properly. Jack stared at it in his hand. Oh, yeah. He needed to put it back, so he did. 

He dropped back on the bed, his feet on the floor, and flung his arm over his forehead. He wanted to cry. Tears prickled his eyes, but nothing came but a hundred memories, a thousand of them. Lureen smiling at him the first time, him handing her that red hat. Lureen on their wedding night, her belly already full of Bobby, not knowing Jack feared their marriage was a big mistake that he couldn’t make work. Lureen in Fort Worth with him and the boy that time at the Japanese Garden, speaking to Jack sharp and mad because she didn’t understand why the place fascinated him so, and why he was lingering over the swirls of sand and the hungry fish. Lureen on one of their trips to Padre Island, only the two of them, her sporting a two piece bathing suit that had the lifeguard looking, but Jack was fresh from a weekend at Lake Kemp, and the next month he’d see Ennis. Lureen the moment he said _I want a divorce,_ sending her hurt eyes down to the carpet in their bedroom that Jack never slept in again. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

After a while he looked at the bedside clock. Nine thirty-five. The Texas Cattle Feeders Association convention waited for no man, though he bet Andy was wondering where the hell he was. He needed…he needed to sit up and start thinking. 

He did. It had to be a seven, eight hour drive from San Antonio to Childress, but he’d get there by late afternoon. He’d have time enough to spend the night with Bobby and let the boy know his old man was there for him even if he didn’t want him to be. Damn, he should’ve called Lureen any time these last three weeks. He’d meant to, had thought of it, but things had gone to hell in a handbasket with him and Ennis, and he’d kept thinking he’d go see her again at the end of the month or maybe the first of September, and that would be enough. He should have called and asked her if she’d had that talk, asked her how she felt, told her that he was sorry she was gonna die, and now all he had was that one last thing he’d done for her, holding her on the couch in their living room while she cried, three weeks ago, when she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder and now forever. 

Jack wiped another tear away. He’d have tonight with Bobby, no matter how hard that might be, and then all day tomorrow with him until the viewing, and then the funeral on Monday, and then after that…. 

The sound of a mariachi band came from below, almost like it was waking him up, Christ, happy music this early in the morning. Right. After the funeral, there was a shit load of stuff to figure. He’d have to settle Bobby with the Montcriefs and talk to L.D. about the trust for Bobby’s college. He’d have to make sure the old bastard knew he wasn’t turning his back on his son and that he had rights as the boy’s father that he was going to stand on. No way he could go back to work, to home, to Ennis until Tuesday, maybe Wednesday or Thursday, it depended on how things were, maybe he’d even bring Bobby back with him, spend a week away in New Mexico except Jack didn’t know when school started, the first day might already have come, because Texas schools did start early, he’d have to find out and he needed Bobby to be okay with Ennis, the two of them meeting, that moment, would anybody ever understand how Jack felt on him?

His hand rested on the phone. It wasn’t any use. Nine-thirty in San Antonio meant eight-thirty in Eagle Nest on a Saturday. With Morgan coming tomorrow for the gray horse, there was no way Ennis would be there to take this call. 

Even so, he had to call, he had to call right then, even though it made no sense, because everything in him of a sudden pointed straight to Ennis like the needle on a compass. Jack dialed his own number, that number that he wasn’t supposed to answer himself, and he listened to it ring just once before it was picked up.

“Hello?”

He closed his eyes and imagined it was the two of them talking in their kitchen across the table, the remains of dinner spread between them, the way it’d been a couple of weeks ago when things had been fine. “Ennis, it’s me.”

He actually heard the shuffle of feet against the kitchen floor. “Hey, bud.” 

He wished Ennis would say more so the words would wash over him, good words to wash the other stuff away, words that would tell him everything was all right between them. But Ennis had never been about words. “How come you aren’t outside?”

“Uh, your mother-in-law called. I figured…figured I’d wait in case you called too. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, well…. I guess she told you?”

“She told me nothing. She sure didn’t want to talk with me. But I can guess. I suppose… Lureen? Turn for the worse? Or….”

“She died yesterday afternoon.” 

“Shit. I am sorry to hear that. She was a fine lady.” 

“Yeah.” 

“How come it took this long for them to call you? Seems—”

“I’m just the ex-husband who ran off to live with another man. I don’t rate, but then again I never did rate. I’ll be lucky if they let me near Bobby. He was the one who found her, Ennis. Yesterday.” 

“Oh, damn.” 

“I don’t…don’t want to think about that, but now he’ll have that the whole rest of his life, finding his mom like that.” 

“That’s hard.” 

“I’ve got to go there.”

“Course you do.”

“The viewing’s tomorrow night, with the funeral the next day. They’re rushing things, it seems to me, but I don’t have any say.” 

“I guess not. Uh, Jack?”

“What?”

“You…coming home after that?”

He opened his eyes. The suitcase was right in front of him, waiting to be taken away to the town where he had too much history. “Yeah,” he said into the receiver. “Yeah, I’ll be back. Though I don’t know when because there are things to be done.” 

Ennis made a sound like the choke that had come from Faye. “I…I guess I’ll see you when you get here, then,” that man said. 

“Right. Don’t you fall on your head while I’m gone.” 

“You…you be careful. There’s folks in Childress who don’t want to see you there. Remember?”

That really bad night outside Childress, a terrifying black cloud in Ennis’s mind, Jack knew. Ennis’s fears…. Let them be a heavy weight on his bowed shoulders, not Jack’s. He was sick of living with them. “Nobody’s going to go after a husband come in for a funeral, you shithead.”

“Even so, you be careful.”

“Okay, I will. I’ll come back to prove you are dumber than shit for worrying.”

“You do that. Jack…. I’m sorry this happened. That you gotta deal with all this now.”

Jack let out a sigh that somehow turned into another rush of sorrow that clogged his throat and brought the tears burning back to his eyes. “I know,” he tried to say like normal, but he couldn’t and he knew those fucking tears had been truly heard. For a couple of seconds he let himself wish that Faye had called him when he was at home, when he could have turned to somebody who maybe cared about the way he was feeling…. Him and Ennis, they’d be all right, wouldn’t they? Jesus Christ, he needed them to be all right. 

“I’ll see you later,” he barely managed to get out, and he hung up the phone.

*****


	13. Comfort Zone

Jigger was his good horse. Jigger never kicked up a fuss. He never shied at a bug buzzing, or at the wind rustling a tree limb, or at sunlight striking through a cloud. He always did what Ennis asked him to do, and sometimes more, like when his horse sense told him it was better to pick his way across a slope of loose rock higher instead of lower. Whoever had trained him, and Ennis didn’t know who that person was, they’d done a fine job, cause a steadier horse he hadn’t been able to find.

Ennis didn’t swing his leg over him too often, since Jigger was around mainly to lend his calm to the other horses, and Ennis’s time was too precious to spend on a horse who already knew how to act. But this Saturday evening he’d limped over to where Jigger stood by the fence, and he’d said, “How about a ride, darling?”

That was after a full day of doing his best by Trouble, and then holding on hard to Fancy cause his ankle couldn’t stand being thrown again. All through the day, he’d asked himself over and over what he should do about Childress and Jack being there alone. A dark cloud had hung over him, filled with worry that he should have said more on the phone, worry that Jack was too far in every way, and maybe getting even farther. How to stop that? How to pull him closer? 

There wasn’t an answer, cause what the hell could he do anyway? A man had things he needed to tend to, like being right here in Eagle Nest for Morgan and Janice tomorrow, and training Fancy so whenever the hell O’Hara called for her she’d be ready. Ennis Del Mar sure didn’t belong in that Texas town. In Childress, goddamned Randall Malone was there to smile at Jack, and L.D. was there to make Jack feel foolish, and his boy Bobby was there to likely turn away from Jack cause he was queer…. And that Duncan, from February, from the side of the road outside Childress with the sleet coming down, saying his town wasn’t a place for queers and he was gonna make sure Jack and his friend didn’t come back: he was there too.

It wasn’t like Ennis could make anything better, was it? Going there would make things worse, since he was Jack’s…Jack’s…Jack’s partner. That meant nothing. Ennis had no standing, even if he did stand next to his man. Jack would understand that, right? 

Jigger was a wise horse. He bobbed his head in that horse way and butted his muzzle into Ennis’s hand, and Ennis felt bad for ignoring him mostly. It wasn’t right. A whole lot of things in this world weren’t right. Ennis stood there with the horse’s nose in his hand and thought on all Jack was gonna go through. He was likely going through it already, since he had to be there by now. 

Taking Jigger along the trail behind the field, deep into the Sangre de Cristos, that didn’t make anything better, but at least he could sit in the saddle without expecting to get tossed off. He leaned forward and took up strands of chestnut mane between his fingers, and then he smoothed them out again, grateful for this one rock of calm he was riding cause nothing in his head was still. 

The breeze was getting fresh as the sun got lower. The heat wave that had sent him and Jack at each other in all bad ways was a memory now. Ten minutes ago Ennis had ridden Jigger as far as he’d ever gone before, which was that time he’d taken Delilah out, when she’d fooled him into thinking she was okay to hand over to Rocky. Now he was in new territory. He knew where the path behind him went, past their own place and the Buckminster ranch and then into Eagle Nest, petering out, he suspected, around the town hall. He wasn’t sure where the path in front of him went, though it seemed determined, hugging the fault lines of the mountains and heading north into the wild, getting higher. Jigger had broken out into a sweat a while back, but he was willing to put some effort into the climb, taking Ennis where he hadn’t been before. 

He pulled the gelding to a standstill under the shade of a big lodgepole pine. Ennis shifted around, the heel of his hand going to lean on the back of the saddle while he looked down. He could see their place below, spread out, their forest a dark line along the edge of the property. The four horses he’d let stay out in the field were dots here and there as they grazed, and then there was the stable where the pinto was holding on. Closer to the road was their house with the roof that Jack had worked on, a house empty more nights now cause Jack didn’t know when he’d be back. 

But he had said he was coming back, hadn’t he? Ennis didn’t know why he didn’t take comfort from that. It was what he wanted, what he needed so life could go on. Jack would be back maybe the end of the week? Maybe the middle? Ennis was afraid to hope. When Jack showed, Ennis would ask how things had gone, and then Jack would tell him what had happened during the time Ennis hadn’t been there with him. 

The view was a good one, as he was about halfway between the valley floor and the tops of the mountains, but Ennis spent some time staring down. He’d been separate from Jack too long. Lureen dying too soon was making that separation go longer, and the space between them was getting wider, a hole being dug deeper. 

He turned around, set himself back into the saddle the right way, and gave Jigger heel too sharply. The horse started forward with a bound that made his hurt foot throb. 

They went around a rocky outcropping and then past a switchback that took them higher fast. Ennis leaned over the pommel to shift his balance for easier climbing. Next came a meadow with yellow flowers bobbing their heads. Marmots scurried around, flashes of brown that he caught from the corner of his eye, and chipmunks ran across the trail now and then. Ten minutes later they moved into shadow cast by a big stand of Ponderosa pines, and pulled up where the path split in two. Ennis considered, looking upslope, but then a loud _thud, thud, thud_ jerked his head around. A stag was coming straight along the path toward him, running with his antlers held high, showing no fear, but surely running from something? Jigger half-reared and tried to back away, and Ennis had to use a heavy hand to keep him where he was. By the time he looked up again, the deer had veered off and climbed straight up the hill. Ennis caught the flash of hindquarters and the flip of a tail before it disappeared. 

He leaned forward and soothed the horse with a hand on his neck. “There, boy,” he murmured. “No harm done.” Jigger tossed his head. “What? That buck didn’t hurt you, even if you were scared of him.” 

The buck had taken a direct route through the brush up the hill, but the riding track he was on went up that way too. The path that the buck had come from, that went to the right and through the open space of the trees, he could see it went level for a long ways before it dipped down and around. It would be an easy direction to go, and probably would lead him back to the valley where he’d be able to ride along the road to get back to the house.

On the left the path climbed immediately, curving both ways, appearing and disappearing like it was playing hide and seek with the trees. Jigger wasn’t really winded, and he could take Ennis a long distance yet. The valley he knew. The mountains he didn’t. 

He hesitated for the space of a few seconds, considering which way to go, but it wasn’t up or down, right or left that he was seeing. 

Maybe…. Maybe Ennis couldn’t count on Jack understanding all the reasons he had to stay where he was. Maybe Ennis had to make things plain, the things that hadn’t been seen or said before. If he kept his stubborn ass in Eagle Nest, what would Jack know? That Ennis didn’t care enough to be with his man through tough times. 

It was Jack he wanted to lay next to at the end of the day. To hear what he had to say, and to touch him again. 

Ennis swallowed against his dry mouth. If he went to Childress…they would know. L.D., and the mother-in-law Faye, and Bobby, and if he wasn’t lucky a bunch more people would look at him and know he was queer. That’s what he was letting himself in for.

But there really wasn’t any choosing. He had to do this. With a cluck of his tongue he turned Jigger around and started back the way he’d come. 

“Come on, boy,” he urged. Jigger picked up the pace, moving swiftly through the flashing light and shadow of the trees.

*****

Ennis put his glasses on, opened up the Moreno Valley phone directory that had come with the house by spreading it on the kitchen table, leaned over it and found _Aguilar, Floyd_ by running his finger down the page.

“Colfax county jail, head jailer speaking, how may I help you?”

But he knew that voice. 

“Hey, it’s Ennis.” 

“Long time no see, Ennis. What’s going on?”

“I’m looking for somebody to care for my horses while I’m gone,” he said, cause he had to get it started before he turned away from the idea. He was trembling inside.

“Care for your horses?”

“Yeah. Can you do it? I’ll pay you. Starting tomorrow, until the middle or the end of the week I guess.”

“Normally I’d say yes, but you know I’ve been working full-time for Rocky the last few weeks. I really prefer part-time.”

Ennis shoved his free hand into his pocket. He should have gone over to Floyd’s house where they could’ve stood face to face. Then this might be easier. He’d never been any good on the phone. 

“I need somebody right now.”

“Are you sure? You couldn’t postpone for a while? Because I know somebody who might be able to help you in a few—”

“I hate to ask, but I gotta go tomorrow. I should’ve gone today.”

“This is awfully sudden. Where in the world are you going?”

He’d known the old Indian would ask. That was like him. “You remember Jack?”

There was a small silence. “Oh. Your friend Jack,” Floyd said with something like a smile in his voice. “Sure, I remember him.”

Ennis plowed on, not letting himself be stopped. “His ex-wife died yesterday, and he’s gone to Texas for the funeral. I gotta go there too.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a mighty fine friend, Ennis, to do that for him.”

Ennis scuffed his shoe against the linoleum. “Not so fine. So, you gonna help me out or what?”

“I guess I can. How many horses do you have?”

“Six,” Ennis said, feeling how Jack had hated how many there were, but he was in business. “One of them’s poorly and needs special care.” 

“All right. I’ll stop by every night after work, will that be enough?”

“Unless the pinto looks like he needs more.”

“Okay, I’ll do that, and charge you extra for more visits. We’ll settle up when you get back. I don’t charge much.”

“I’ll count on that. Can you come by tomorrow early? Then I can show you around and we can talk money.”

“I go to church on Sunday mornings. How about around noon or so? Twelve-thirty?” 

Damn. He wanted to launch himself out of this house before the sun was up. It felt like the bottom of his feet were itching. He needed to find where Jack was, make sure he was okay, and make sure he knew things. Floyd was doing Ennis a big favor, the only way this could happen, but noon wasn’t good. 

“Can’t you come sooner?”

“If I go to the early service at nine, maybe I could be at your place by, say, ten-fifteen. Ten thirty?” 

Ennis didn’t stop himself from wincing. There was nobody there to see him. “How about tonight?”

“Sorry, I’ve got a couple of friends over right now.” 

Oh. That was Floyd’s way, taking in strays of all sorts. “Tomorrow at ten-fifteen, then. I’ll wait for you.” 

“It’s a deal.” 

He hardly said anything more but got off in a hurry. When he did, it seemed he’d been holding his breath and only now could let it go and take another. That was the most important part done, the first phone call over. He hoped Jack appreciated what he was doing. 

The phone book gave him the next number he needed, but it wasn’t any use. It rang and rang with nobody picking up. He took that as a sign and grabbed his keys, went out to the Ram, and headed into town. It was his driving ankle that was hurt, and it got to paining him even on this short drive. There was no knowing how it’d be tomorrow over hours. 

The Texaco was busy that night. He had to wait in line at the gas pumps under the glare of the white overhead lights, but soon enough he was making sure the truck was filled up for the next day’s traveling. The fella that he bought feed from at the store on the outskirts of Cimarron, his name was Dan, he was there with a pretty woman sitting in the passenger seat, doing the same thing as Ennis was. He raised his hand to say hi. Ennis nodded back and then kept his eyes on the pump total getting higher and higher. Gas was expensive these days to start with, but a man couldn’t do a thing about that. 

When he went into the store to pay, Cindy at the cash register said, “Hi, Mister Del Mar,” when he handed over the bills. Damn, money. He still didn’t have the credit card that Jack had harped a couple times on him getting, and his bank sure wasn’t open. He didn’t have the cash in his wallet for nights in a motel room, more gas, food, and whatever else he’d need or maybe Jack would need.

He stole a glance at Cindy as she counted out change. She’d said his name. Maybe she knew him cause he came here regularly. It was a small town after all. So he asked if she’d cash it if he came back with his latest paycheck. She pointed at the sign that said _No Payroll Checks Cashed._ “Who’s it drawn on?” she wanted to know. Ennis didn’t like giving her his business, but he said Rocky Buckminster down the road. Cindy smiled, showing her big teeth, and said sure, if he had the right ID. 

He hauled his ass to the house, swiped the check from the dresser in the bedroom, and drove back under the stars. Before he put the check signed by Betty Jo Buckminster on the counter, he grabbed a quart of oil. With his wallet stuffed full, he checked his tire pressure, put in some of the oil and capped the rest, cause you never knew when you’d need it, and then back home he went. 

It took five minutes to get the grime off his hands, washing at the kitchen sink, but after that he picked up the phone again. 

“Hello?” came Matt’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Uh, is Rocky there? It’s Ennis.” 

“Oh, hi, Ennis! How’re you?”

“Okay. Your dad there?”

“No, he’s out with Tag tonight. Something with the football team getting together before the season starts. I don’t pay much attention to that stuff.”

Damn. “Then, uh, how about your mom?”

“Sure, just a minute.” 

Matt hollering _Mom! Phone for you!_ came through loud and clear. Then he called again, so Ennis figured she must be upstairs writing.

“Hello?”

“Ma’am, this is Ennis Del Mar.” 

“Hi, Ennis. Is everything all right?”

“Had to tell you, I won’t be coming in to work on Monday.”

He could tell by the way she breathed that this wasn’t good news. 

“All right.”

“And I won’t be in the next days, either. Not real sure when I’ll be back. Maybe Thursday.”

“What do you mean, you’re not sure? You sound like…. You know Rocky and I find you a very valuable employee, and you would be really leaving us in the lurch if you—”

“It ain’t that.”

“Honestly, I have no problem at all with the fact that you…that you are living with your friend Jack. It’s your business, not mine, and Rocky feels the same—”

“I’m coming back.”

“That’s what Frank said weeks ago, and where is he? If I’ve said anything to offend you, I apologize. I know that you didn’t take kindly to my visit, and I’m sorry for that. Believe me, I am the last person in the world who would—”

“Betty Jo, I said I’m coming back. Didn’t you hear that?” 

That stopped her for a couple seconds. “Where are you going? Forgive me for asking, but you’ve made yourself important to what we’re trying to do with the ranch. I need some reassurance.”

He hitched his shoulder up and turned around to face the dark window. The whole damn county was gonna know his business before the night was through, not just that fucking maybe-a-donkey-dong that Jack couldn’t keep his mouth shut around. 

“Jack’s wife died,” he said. “His ex-wife, I mean. He’s there already, back in Texas, and I’m leaving tomorrow to…” he couldn’t immediately find another way to say it, “...to be with him.” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. Was it an accident? Were they close?”

Betty Jo was curious as could be, sticking her nose in everywhere it didn’t belong. “Yeah, they were friends. When she was here those weeks ago, when Jack called your house that time, that was when she told us she had cancer that had spread. We didn’t expect her to go this fast, though.” 

“That’s awful. Is Jack very upset? I must say that I liked him the one time we met.”

No way he was talking to this woman about that. “Just letting you know that you won’t be seeing me for a while.”

“I understand. If you’ll be later than Thursday, please give us a call.”

“I’ll do that. Now I gotta tell you some things about the horses while I’m gone.”

They talked some minutes about ranch business. He could tell that Betty Jo was writing down most of the stuff he said. She finished up with, “Thanks for letting us know you’ll be gone, Ennis. I’m sorry if I got a little worked up.” 

“It’s okay. You should know, I ain’t no quitter.” 

“I know. Or I should have known. Travel safely, and please give my best to Jack. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.” 

The phone rested easier in its cradle on the wall than it did in his sweaty hand, and he was glad to set it there. The second phone call was done with. Ennis wiped his palm on his pants leg and went back to the book. But when he dialed the third and last number for the night, it rang busy. 

The clock on the wall said nine thirty-two, getting late to interrupt a person’s Saturday goings-on. He was feeling the day’s work falling on his shoulders, dragging him down, and though him and Jack hadn’t talked on the phone any more than ten times in their whole lives, he sure did wish he could dial a magic number and hear that man’s voice on the other end of the line. But he didn’t even know where he was staying. 

Ennis gnawed on a fingernail. How was he gonna find Jack tomorrow? Waltz into the L.D. Newsome household and announce himself? 

He wandered into the bedroom and opened the closet doors that folded out, one on each side. If he packed some clothes now he’d be that much more beforehand in the morning. 

His old black cloth bag, that he’d used on the trip him and Jack had taken to Fort Worth, was stored on the floor, on his side of the closet. He hauled it out but it wasn’t big enough. He shoved aside some pants hanging down on Jack’s side and saw a suitcase there, black, zippered, the right size. What the hell, Jack wasn’t using it. In it he packed the best clothes he owned, which wasn’t saying all that much, since he’d never paid attention to clothes when it was all he could do to dredge up money for rent and child support. Things were different here in New Mexico. Jack dressed sharp, was always looking good, and even though Ennis watched his pennies, it was true that the Buckminsters were paying him a fair wage. It stretched across his half of the house costs, and the horses, and other things, but still, there was some left at the end of the week. 

It had been hard to get used to that idea and act in different ways, cause you never knew what might happen…. But new clothes weren’t impossible, nor new boots. Only he didn’t own much in that direction right now. 

With most everything folded in Jack’s suitcase, he stood in front of the closet again and forced himself to haul out the only suit he owned, cause chances were he was gonna need it. He held it up on the hanger. The last time it had seen use was at Jenny’s graduation, and when he’d packed it then, Jack had laughed at him, made faces, and said he’d look like a grandpa wearing it. Ennis frowned at the thing. Even to him, it did seem threadbare and sort of off-color, a faded blue with grey stripes. But what could he do? If…if it worked out that he went to the funeral, if that was what Jack wanted of him, he’d need to wear a suit. He couldn’t show up in his jeans. L.D. Newsome and all those friends that Jack and Lureen’d had, could be they’d be looking at him, judging him and judging Jack by the way he looked. He couldn’t let things get worse than they were gonna be already by not showing the right respect.

He folded the pants and jacket as best he could and stuck them on the top, but he didn’t feel good about doing so. 

Back in the kitchen he picked up the phone again, not feeling good about this either, but it had to be done. This time his dialing rang through. 

“Hello?”

“Morgan, this is Ennis del Mar.” 

“Uh-oh. Are we still on for tomorrow?”

“That’s what I’m calling about. Could you make it early, like nine o’clock?”

“Nine o’clock? I don’t think so. That wouldn’t work out too well with what I have planned for my anniversary morning. After lunch isn’t good for you now?”

“I won’t be…. I suppose you don’t know about Lureen.” 

“Oh, no. ”

“Yeah, she passed.”

“When did it happen?”

In the background, Ennis heard a woman’s voice. _Morgan? What’s wrong?_

_Lureen Twist died._

_Oh, no, not so soon. Last I heard she was doing well._

“On Friday afternoon. I’m leaving tomorrow to go to Texas.”

_Give me the phone, let me talk to Jack._

_No, this isn’t him._

_Then who is it?_

_It’s Ennis, his partner. Hold on…._

“Jack’s not there, is he? Janice wants to talk with him.”

“No, he was in San Antonio like I told you yesterday. I gotta leave as soon as I can tomorrow, and that’s why I was hoping you could come over early.” 

There was a pause while it seemed Morgan thought on it, but then he said, “No…. No, I’d rather not rush it. Let’s put it off a week. Janice will understand. I’m assuming you’ll be back next weekend?”

“I aim to be. I’m hoping not to be gone more than a few days. I’m sorry about this. It’s not what I wanted.”

“No, I understand. Thanks for letting us know about Lureen.”

“I’ll call when I’m back, and we’ll set up another time.” 

“Fine. Please give Jack our best.”

“I’ll do that. Good-bye.”

*****

At eleven forty-five on Sunday morning, Ennis drove up to the J.C. Penney department store parking lot in Taos. When the doors opened at noon, he walked at speed to the men’s section, where he picked out a charcoal gray suit, worsted wool, size 32, the only tall in stock right off the rack. The astonished salesman, who’d dogged his elbow from the moment he’d stepped foot into the forest of fine-looking men’s clothes, insisted he try it on. It was okay, which was a good thing because he had no time for any changes from a high-charging tailor anyway. He would have preferred to slap down dollars for the suit, one pair of black dress slacks, and two white button-down shirts, but he wrote a check instead, mindful of his cash, and was out of there with a plastic bag over his shoulder at twelve twenty-one. The bag got draped over the passenger seat of the truck carefully, but there wasn’t much careful about the way he pulled out of the lot. Ennis figured he had about seven hours of driving in front of him. He was leaving way later than he’d planned, but he was gonna push hard. At least this way, Jack wouldn’t be ashamed of how Ennis looked. 

He aimed the truck toward the state line, thinking of all the times that Jack had spent long hours behind the steering wheel to get to him. He hoped this would work out. He hoped Jack was doing okay. He hoped driving to where he feared to go would close the distance between them.

*****

Jack ignored Faye, brushed past L.D., and went straight to where Bobby sat in a kitchen chair.

“Dad!”

The boy jumped up and came to him, his face breaking down and the tears coming even before Jack wrapped his arms around his shoulders. 

Jack stood on Faye’s fine Mexican tile and let his son soak his shirt, crying for his mom. He had the feeling there hadn’t been any crying going on in front of the grandparents, and his sudden appearance in the middle of dinner had let Bobby’s pain loose. It was hard not to follow with his own tears, but no way would he do that with L.D. in the room. He held onto Bobby tight, closed his eyes, and thanked whoever might be listening in heaven for this reaction from his son and not something else. After driving half the day, still he’d stand there for the next year if that’s what his boy needed from him.

But it was not long after all before he heard L.D. cough, and not one second later Bobby went stiff against him and jerked back like he’d been burned. The look Bobby gave him then—like he didn’t know Jack at all, like he wondered if Jack really was something awful—was enough to let him know that Bobby sure had been told. That L.D. had been too. 

He took a step toward his son, his hand reaching out, already missing the comfort that he’d given that was a comfort to him at the same time. 

“Bobby…. Son….”

Behind him L.D. sobbed, unmistakable, though he’d never in a million years thought he’d hear such a sound from the bastard. “You faggot,” his broken voice came. “You weren’t worthy to touch her hand.”

*****

In her fine cherrywood casket with white silk lining—the best money could buy—Lureen looked a lot worse than when Jack had seen her last. Those final weeks of her life had been hard, dropping weight and causing her cheekbones to jut out, cutting lines under her eyes. Her dark hair, short cause it’d never had the time to grow back, didn’t even flow over the pillow. 

The family had come for the viewing early at seven o’clock, given an extra half an hour to…he guessed so they could get their grief out, to let the tears flow and then get dried, so when the people began to push themselves through the front door they could put some face on it. 

The family. That didn’t include him. He was lucky he’d got out of the Newsome house on Saturday without L.D. aiming a gun at his head.

“No,” Faye had said when L.D. had turned purple-faced toward him. She’d gone to stand in front of her husband, with her vein-laced hands spread out wide. “This man is our grandson’s father. Remember what Lureen said to us, sitting in this very room? Are you going to honor what she asked us to do or not?” 

He’d never once thought Faye had strength like that. L.D. had trembled with what looked like fury, and then he’d broken down into tears worse than what Bobby had shed. Seeing L.D. without power, with no place to turn, gave Jack no satisfaction. 

L.D. had sobbed into Faye’s arms. “My baby,” said the big man, reduced to relying on his wife.

No, Jack wasn’t family any more, but earlier this day as they sat in the living room all set up with rented tables and chairs—prepared for Monday after the funeral—he’d said that he was coming to the funeral home with Bobby, and nobody had said anything different. 

Now, he stood in front of the casket by himself. There was a kneeler, candles to either side, and two big baskets of flowers on stands. The last twenty-four hours had been harder than he’d thought they would be, and he had days of this ahead of him. This was only the beginning. There was this night that he couldn’t imagine getting through, and then the funeral, and then the burial, and then back at the house. There was stuff to do before he left, and sweet Jesus, he needed to leave and go back to Ennis where he belonged. 

Staring down at the body of his ex-wife, he felt a surge come up in him like the rush of a strong wind, blowing out of him straight west, taking him home. He could taste the salt of Ennis’s skin, feel stubble rasp against his cheek, and he heard Ennis’s voice. 

Jack lifted his chin. He had to get hold of himself. It wasn’t right to have such thoughts here, even if he felt alone. Even if he felt like a counterfeit dollar bill. 

There was movement next to him. Bobby stood there, not as tall as him yet, his light brown hair not much like his, not filled out in shoulders or arms with the man’s strength he might someday have. He stared down at his mom’s body. 

“She looks…she looks pretty good, don’t you think?” Bobby asked. 

It wasn’t hard to say it. “Beautiful. She was always the most beautiful woman in Childress. The most beautiful I ever met.” 

“Even after all the chemo.”

“Even then.” 

_On Saturday night, Faye gave him meatloaf and mashed potatoes that had been brought over by members of the Baptist Women’s League. He sat there and listened to her tell him things, about how the doctor was sure his ex-wife had died in her sleep, how it was a blessing from the Lord, how Bobby had been so brave and so smart calling his grandparents right away. But once Faye ran down, there were long silences._

_They wouldn’t leave him alone with Bobby._

_Even when he said “Let’s go into the living room, where we can have a talk.” Bobby looked both scared and hopeful, but Faye put her hand on the table, close to where his was, careful not to touch, and she said, gently, “I don’t think that is a wise idea, Jack. Considering.”_

_It made him wish he hadn’t eaten her food. The Baptist Women’s food. When he looked toward Bobby, the boy had turned away, and it was too hard to push for more right then._

Bobby stood next to him for a while, and Jack felt pathetic that he was grateful for so little, that his boy was willing to stand next to him. Then Bobby went to sit in one of the padded folding chairs lined up along the walls. The room where Lureen was laid out had a low ceiling, was lit with a soft yellow glow, and was twice as wide as it was long. Jack didn’t know that there was a single spot in the whole place that was right for him to be in. He turned away from the casket and saw that L.D. was sitting over by the door. His big frame was slumped down on itself, his hands hanging low between his knees, and he had the look of someone pushed over the edge of the earth, past recovery. Faye was next to him with her purse on her lap. Neither one of them was seventy yet, but many more years were in the marks the last few days had made on them. 

It was quiet except for music playing softly, the right mix for the night before the funeral, Jack guessed. 

The funeral director, the gray-haired Paul Johnson who he knew by sight from around town, came over to him. “Mister Twist?”

“Yes?”

“These are always somewhat delicate circumstances, when the divorced spouse of the deceased attends.”

“I know.”

“The Newsomes have requested that you not formally receive the visitors tonight.” 

“What?”

“They will stand to the right of the deceased,” the man gestured to show, “along with Robert. To receive condolences from those wishing to extend their sympathy as they enter the room. It would be best if you not participate in that, which is typical in the case of divorced spouses anyway. Perhaps the other side of the room?” 

He looked over at Bobby. The boy had to have heard, and a second later he met Jack’s eyes. Jack went over to him. 

“Is that what you want, son? You want to stand in line with your granddad and grandmom? You up to that? Because if you’re not, nobody’s going to force you to—”

“No, it’s all right. I’ll do it.”

“Okay. If you change your mind, you come over to me.” 

_He waited until noon on Sunday to leave the Comfort Inn. He’d stayed there because he wasn’t welcome in the house that was sheltering his son, and he had no rights to his old home. He knocked on the Newsome door, and Faye let him in. Bobby didn’t come down the stairs for another hour, his hand trailing reluctantly on the railing. Faye had plenty of food in the kitchen, and she fed both of them at the same time._

_“We’ll be holding the house open tomorrow,” she told them in her soft voice that had gone softer with the years. “Bobby, you probably don’t know about how these things are done. Your grandfather has gone with the truck to get tables and chairs from the rental service. People will be bringing more food.”_

_Christ, that too. Jack put his fork down and looked over at where she was standing on the far side of the kitchen. “After the funeral?”_

_She nodded. “You’re welcome to come back with the others.”_

_Like he needed the invitation specially._

_“There are things we need….”_

_Jack stood up. “Have you got a list?”_

_“It’s right here. If you could go to the store….”_

_Bobby’s chair scraped back. “I’ll go too.”_

_“No,” said his ex-mother-in-law._

_“Faye, I’m not going to—” Jack closed his lips over words that couldn’t leave his mouth. “Faye, Bobby is my son, and I’m sure Lureen told you what the arrangements are for him. You can’t keep us apart forever. There are things the two of us need to talk about.”_

_She looked scared to death. “I….” Her hand went down to her apron and brought it up to her mouth, covering it. “I’m trying to do what’s best. It’s so…. I don’t understand. How could you…. But Lureen asked….”_

_As if the mention of her daughter’s name had snapped something inside her, Faye turned around and pressed herself up against the sink._

_Jack listened to her cry. There had been times when he’d gotten along okay with his mother-in-law. He wanted to go to her now and hug her, join with her sorrow, and let her talk about Lureen for a while. Instead, Bobby went to her and awkwardly patted her on the back like the teenager he was. After a while she dried her tears and handed him a list. “Go ahead,” she said to her grandson. “Go with your father. Just don’t tell your granddad.”_

_The Newsome house was outside of town to the southwest, up on a hill, custom-built during the best years of Newsome Farm Equipment in the early seventies. It would take six, maybe seven minutes to drive to the grocery store, and Jack started talking as soon as they were out the driveway._

_“How are you holding up?”_

_“I’m okay.” Bobby stared out the window of the red Ford Escort that Jack had rented in San Antonio._

_“You all right staying with Granddad and Grandmom right now?”_

_“No, but I don’t suppose they’d let me stay by myself in our house.”_

_“Probably not.”_

_“Even if you stayed there with me?”_

_Jack shook his head. “I don’t think that’s—”_

_“It’s all right. I don’t really want to go back there anyway.”_

_“I guess your mom talked to you about where we thought it would be best for you to live this year.”_

_Bobby gave a short laugh. “Oh, yeah. Right after she told me she was dying, she let me know the two of you had arranged the rest of my life for me.”_

_“You know that’s not true,” Jack said._

_“Felt like it was.”_

_“We were trying to think of what was best for you. We figured you’d want to finish out at the high school with your friends. Were we wrong?”_

_“No.”_

_“Is staying with Charlie and his family okay? Because if it’s not, we can try to think of something else.”_

_“No, it’s okay.” The boy glanced at him and then went back to watching the scenery, flat prairieland in the summer drought. “It just seems…so quick. I thought mom was okay, and even after she told me…the truth,” his voice broke for a second, “I don’t know that I really believed it. I mean, you hear about people getting better even from cancer all the time.”_

_“I know.”_

_“Two days ago I thought it was still far away, that maybe she’d get better, and now we’re talking about me living with Charlie’s family…. I want things to go back the way they were.”_

_“I know.”_

_“Dad, I want Mom to be alive again.”_

_There was room by the side of Highway 287, and Jack used it to pull over and put his arm around his son’s shoulder while he cried. Bobby seemed awfully young, and he felt awfully old._

_“I don’t…I don’t understand,” Bobby sobbed. “Why’d she have to die?”_

_In the face of everything he didn’t know, Jack felt small. “There aren’t any answers to questions like that. Some things…it’s just the way life is, the way nature is, and we’re caught by the force of it.”_

_“But what did she do to deserve that?”_

_Jack looked out the windshield and thought about his whole life. What had he done to deserve a son who could talk to him like this, trusted him enough for this? What had he done to deserve a father who’d made his life hell? What had he done to deserve his needful, different body?_

_“I don’t think we do or don’t do anything to deserve one thing or another. Death is part of life, like breathing, like having blue eyes or being born…the way a person is. Some things we’ve got to accept, because there’s no fighting against them.”_

_They sat together for a while, Bobby sniffling and wiping his tears on his sleeve, Jack patting him on the back and wondering if he’d said the right thing, done the right thing, touched too much or too little. Then Jack pulled back into the flow of traffic and went to Brookshire’s grocery store to get the Vanity Fair napkins, Chinet plates, and everything else that was on Faye’s list. Bobby got stopped twice by folks saying how sorry they were and that they’d be at the viewing that night, but nobody Jack knew came near them._

_On the way back to the house it seemed the silence between them was heavy with what hadn’t been said yet. Jack thought about Ennis and wondered what he was doing this minute, if Morgan had come already and how Trouble had behaved. He remembered how Ennis’s voice had sounded on the phone, the rough, deep way he spoke, and how he’d said things that might make Jack feel better. His man, he’d been trying. Jack didn’t let his thoughts stray to how they’d parted or how stubborn his fellow was, because he had to believe that when he got back they could still work something out between them. Something, somehow. Even if it wasn’t what he ached for: the kind of knowing of each other that told when they were needed, when they shouldn’t step away, when a look or a touch would make all the difference._

_His hands tightened on the steering wheel. If him and Ennis couldn’t work things out, they may as well bury him with Lureen._

_He cleared his throat. “Bobby?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“I guess…I guess your mom had a talk with you about the way I’m living now.”_

_“Dad, please. Do you have to? Not now.”_

_“Now’s not the time to…to explain things, but—”_

_Bobby interrupted him. “You can’t ever explain that.”_

_Jack pressed his lips together and drove for a ways without saying more._

_“I’m sorry,” came with a heave of breath from the passenger seat._

_Jack sighed. “I wanted to tell you myself, but your mom wouldn’t let me. She insisted that…. Well, it’s done.”_

_“I guess.”_

_“I don’t want…I don’t want to keep things from you. I think we’re going to need to be open about this to make it work. I love you, Bobby,” he said while staring straight out toward the road, driving past the house where old lady Winthrop grew flowers to sell on Saturdays. “And I want to keep being your dad, to see you and be part of your life. Okay?”_

_It took a while, but eventually his son said, “Okay.”_

The funeral director walked into the middle of the room and said, “It’s almost time to open the doors.” 

L.D. heaved himself up from the chair and then collapsed right back down again. His head dropped into his hand. “I can’t,” he moaned. “I can’t do this.” 

Jack and Bobby stood back for five minutes while he turned pale, gulped for air, tried to get to his feet again and failed. “Is he on heart medication?” the funeral director asked Faye in alarm. 

“No,” she snapped from where she was crouched on her knees in front of her husband. “We’ve just lost our only daughter, that’s all.” 

Eventually L.D. got himself back under control. He stood with Faye and Bobby along the way people would take from the door to the casket, Jack retreated to the other side of the room, and the doors were opened. Jack braced himself as if there would be a blizzard of snow coming in on them, but it was only the pastor from First Baptist and his wife. 

The next minutes passed in a miserable haze of broken images, like time wasn’t smooth anymore and proceeded herky jerky. The wrinkled neck of the first person to come across and shake his hand, not Pastor Miller but old man Tumulty who owned the Dairy Queen out on the highway. The high, high hair of Sharon Keefe, Lureen’s hairdresser and good friend for years, and how she made a point of turning her back to him, the man who’d divorced Lureen. The snatches of words coming from the folks who talked to Faye and L.D. and Bobby, and how when they crossed over to stand or kneel in front of the casket, they cut off the light from one of the candles that flickered on guard. The shadows thrown by the baskets of flowers across the center of the room, and the stink of them. 

Some people came to talk to him, some didn’t, and nobody stayed with him for long. Mainly Jack stood like a tree where he’d planted himself, fourteen feet to one side of where his ex-wife lay, eight feet out from the wall behind him, miles from where he wanted to be. 

Twenty minutes passed, twenty-five, and he forced himself not to look at his watch again. The funeral home had said until nine-thirty, and at the end the pastor would lead them in some prayers and some hymns.

A girl and two boys Bobby’s age caught his eye. The girl hugged Bobby, and the boys shook his hand solemnly. Jack was glad to see it. Wistfully, he wished he could cross the room and say hi to those kids, who were obviously a big part of his son’s life, but he wasn’t welcome over there. 

“Hey, Jack.” 

Everything stopped.

_Hey, Jack._

A chill raced into his cheekbones as if ice cubes had been applied to his face. He wanted to turn and see if he’d lost his mind, check if he was hearing things, but he couldn’t hardly breathe much less manage to turn his whole head toward who he wanted to be there. But Ennis couldn’t be there, because Jack knew his man. He knew there was no way that Ennis Del Mar was standing in Childress, Texas where he’d had about the worst experience in his life. He couldn’t be there, not after the angry words that had cut them off from each other. Ennis couldn’t have come for Jack because he knew he was so goddamn fucking needed….

Not possible.

Jack took in air. Blinked. Turned. Looked. 

_Ennis._

Possible. There. The ground under his feet shifted. 

“What…what….” He couldn’t get his lips to move right. “What’re you doing here?”

Ennis took the smallest of steps closer to him, though he was still far enough away that Gary and one of his friends could’ve danced through the space between them. He looked around nervously, the same old Ennis, but there was nobody too near, and he said, quietly, his eyes darting up to match Jack’s and then down to the carpet, “Showing you who’s number one to me.” He shrugged. 

All the air escaped Jack’s lungs. “Ennis,” he said on the flow of it, and reached out his hand, he didn’t know what way, but he needed it. Ennis took it in the way they were getting used to in public, in a handshake that didn’t last any longer than normal, but to Jack it was enough, because they’d touched, he was sure that Ennis was here, and because of what Ennis had just said….

His gaze took in his man quickly, couldn’t be too obvious, he was aware of people in the room, but he had to. “You look…” his voice cracked. “…you look good.” 

Ennis glanced down at himself and his shoulders hunched. “New suit. Figured I needed one, so….” He nodded over toward the line of people. “That’s L.D., huh?”

“The man himself.” 

“I’m not going over there.”

“You don’t have to. How…how long can you stay?” He hated how he sounded so needy.

“A while. Thought I might be useful.” 

“Can you stay here now? Until…until tonight is over?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And….”

“I gotta meet Bobby sometime, right?” Ennis swallowed. “And, uh, and make sure L.D. doesn’t eat you for lunch.” Again, Ennis’s eyes ranged around the room where there were folks standing here and there in small groups, and Jack could feel the anxiety coming off him. 

It was on the tip of his tongue to say _It’s okay, you don’t need to stay. I’ll be all right. You’ve done your bit by coming here tonight. Go home tomorrow morning and see to your horses, and I’ll be there when I can._ But he didn’t say that. Ennis was uneasy, it was plain to see, but here he was, and Jack wasn’t giving him any outs. 

“Okay,” Jack said. “You can be my guard dog.” 

Ennis made a face at him and then smoothed it away as if remembering where they were. His gaze wandered over to where Lureen was laying. “There she is,” he said softly. “I am real sorry about her dying. I’ll be back.”

Ennis went over to the casket, where a couple Jack didn’t know were walking away from it. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, and so saw what Ennis clearly was trying to hide, that he was favoring his right foot. Ennis folded his hands at his waist and bowed his head. Jack wondered what he was thinking. He didn’t think Ennis prayed. He didn’t think there was a place for God or an idea of heaven in Ennis’s view of the world, but they hadn’t talked about it much. 

Jack glanced over at Bobby. The boy was looking his way with a frown and a question, but Jack was not inclined to answer right now. He checked out L.D., who was listening to a man who had to be eighty if he was a day, and Faye, who was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. 

Jack sent his gaze down to his feet. Just two minutes for a world of difference. 

Ennis was back. “If it’s okay with—” he started, but then he cut himself off and leaned in two inches closer, squinting. “What’s wrong with your face? Did the bastard go after—”

“No, no.” He’d forgotten the bruise and how his nose hurt. Not another soul had mentioned it. “I…I wasn’t looking where I was walking.” 

He could tell Ennis didn’t believe him. He wanted to laugh, mainly at himself, but he didn’t. Had he been crazy at the convention? He should’ve known how Gary would take him being there, going out on the town, and that he’d push things too far even though Jack hadn’t meant…. Or, deep down, maybe he had meant, as a test somehow? Yeah, maybe he had been crazy. 

“No, really,” Jack said. “I wasn’t looking where I was walking. I came close to walking off a cliff.”

“In San Antonio.” 

“Yeah.”

“Huh. If you say so. Listen, if it’s the same to you, I’ll stand back there.” He gestured behind Jack to the wall. 

“That’s fine.” 

If Ennis had wanted to stand next to him, he would’ve thought the man was a fake. Besides, it wouldn’t be safe or right. For a minute or so, Jack thought uncertainly how this might look from other eyes, his male lover showing up at his ex-wife’s viewing. He felt the wrongness in that. But Ennis had met Lureen. They’d said words to each other that had made a connection, and Lureen had passed knowing that Ennis would be part of Bobby’s life. So…maybe this wasn’t that wrong. 

Jack went back to standing like a tree, but his head was whirling, and he didn’t know if he was coming or going. But wasn’t it true that he’d said _you surprised me_ more than once since Ennis had shown up at the dealership on a cold winter night? But this…. Of all the things he hadn’t expected….

Ennis had come to Childress for him. 

No mistaking. For him. 

He tried reminding himself of that sixth horse, of the business phone line Ennis was too stubborn and cheap to get, of the weekends spent in the company of somebody besides who he wanted to be with. He hadn’t yet figured how they’d get past any of that and wasn’t ready this night to take it up.

But he couldn’t seem to keep his head fixed on those things anyway. _Number one to me._

Jack clamped down on his trembling jaw. And then he couldn’t help himself, he turned around to see again or maybe to check that he wasn’t imagining. Ennis, looking serious, looking nervous as a cat, his hands behind him and tapping his foot, looking the most handsome man in the whole room in his new suit—Ennis had spent real money on that—Ennis, some sort of gift from heaven, caught his eye immediately. He nodded, and Jack nodded too, and he turned back more amazed than he’d been even at the start. 

He desperately wanted eyes in the back of his head, but he was forced to use the ones in front, because more people came up to him now as the crowd grew. The Newsomes were prominent citizens of Childress County and had sold farm equipment for three generations to the entire region. And Lureen had never been one to stay quiet. Everybody had known her and a lot of people knew him too, the pissant rodeo cowboy she’d brought into the family. 

He shook hands with most everybody now, his words coming mainly automatically and his arm getting heavier and heavier. Like the touch of fingers, he could feel Ennis’s gaze on him: across his shoulders, along the length of his spine, on his ass and the backs of his knees. If time had passed slowly before, now it crawled. 

He talked to his and Lureen’s doctor. The nurse who ran his front office, her husband, and their two teenaged children. The high school principal. The president of the local bank and the cute teller who had always flirted with Jack when he’d gone in to make the Newsome deposit. The head of the Newsome dealership parts department and the two men who worked under him. Rose and Dan Montcrief, who were going to take Bobby in. Lureen’s best friend and her husband, and then the two couples that they’d socialized with most. Jack talked with them a good ten minutes, all four of them together, telling them how he was settled in New Mexico, about his job, how the air was clear, carefully not telling them exactly where he lived, and not inviting them for a visit. 

The people came on and on, and the room got hot and stuffy as many of them stayed and milled around. The lights seemed to get brighter, harsher, and all the people talking, even respectfully, began to hurt his ears. Most of the time he couldn’t see across the room to where Bobby was. A few people looked over his shoulder at the quiet man against the wall behind him, but none with any purpose. Nobody knew who Ennis was, and nobody cared enough to ask.

And then he heard “Ah am sorry for your loss” from across the room, the unmistakably rich voice of LaShawn Malone, who sure wasn’t here on her own. Randy must be over there. 

Shit. Jack forced a smile at the woman turning away from him and when she was gone put a hand to his head. Shit, shit, shit. He hadn’t…. Damn, he wasn’t thinking straight, hadn’t been since he’d stormed off their field a week ago. Maybe Ennis had fried his brain with how mad he’d made Jack. Of course he should’ve realized the Malones would be here. Ennis was going to…. He didn’t know how he’d react. Christ, not now. Not now. A throb of pain stabbed behind his eyes.

Maybe Ennis didn’t need to know. Just one more couple, one more man. He could keep it low-key, not say a name…. Jack had a few minutes before they got to him. 

But…. He was so fucking tired of it. He couldn’t change the way things had been for him.

His right hand twitched. He turned around toward the man who’d said _no_ to him for endless years. 

“What’s the matter?” Ennis was next to him right away. 

Jack drew in a breath. “Are you really here to stay?”

Ennis frowned. “I said I would.”

“I thought I’d better tell you, Randy’s here. That’s his wife talking loud. They’ll be over soon.” 

Ennis chewed his lower lip. “Huh.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. 

Jack said, “I didn’t want you to—”

He was interrupted. “Which one is he?”

Jack looked over. “He’s kissing Faye’s cheek right now.” 

Ennis sent a glance across the room, dark and troubled. “Huh. You go for the tall ones.” 

“I don’t go for….” He stopped himself. “Ennis. I didn’t plan this.”

“I know. I thought of this driving, that this might likely happen. Okay.” 

“Okay? What…what, do you want to meet him?” The sky would fall soon.

Ennis threw him a look like Jack was offering him poison. “Hell, no.” He stepped back and out of Jack’s sight, back to holding up the wall. 

Jack tracked Randy’s progress through the crowd, following his brown head. A few minutes later he saw Randy separate himself from where LaShawn was clutching Bobby’s hand and walk with purpose past the casket, not giving it a glance, toward him instead.

“Jack,” Randy said with warmth, and he held out one hand. The other went up to Jack’s shoulder, because Randy always had been a toucher, and there wasn’t anything Jack could do about that. He felt the pressure of Randy’s fingers against his skin. Back when they’d met in the grocery store the month before, Randy had made no bones of the fact that he missed Jack and what they used to do together.

“Randy. Good of you to come tonight.”

“We had to. Lureen was a good woman.” 

“Yeah, she was.” 

“How are you holding up? How’s Bobby?”

“We’re doing okay. I think he’ll be all right. How’re you?”

“Oh, you know. The same old thing. Like I told you the last time you were here, things are quiet since you left town. How are things in New Mexico? Do you still like it there?”

Jack nodded. “Yeah.” 

“You gonna introduce me?” 

It was Ennis talking, with his shoulders pulled back the way they seldom were, and his hands hanging loosely by his sides. He looked the challenge at Randy, who probably didn’t have a clue why there was a sudden silence, or why this strange man had appeared, or why Jack was having trouble finding words.

But if Ennis was willing, Jack wasn’t going to be the one to say no. “Ennis, this is Randall Malone. Randy, this is my real good friend Ennis Del Mar.” 

Randy couldn’t hide the surprise on his honest face. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. You never did believe me when I said we were together, did you?”

“You can’t blame me, because that was never going to happen.” Randall stuck out his hand, and after moments when things weren’t decided, Ennis took it. 

“Malone.” Ennis growled the name, shook the hand, and released it.

Randall smiled with a wry twist of his lips. “Mister Del Mar. I’m not sure I know what to say to you.”

“About the same here.” 

“I guess…” he looked over at Jack, his brow furrowing. “Does everyone know he’s here?”

“No, and let’s keep it that way.” 

“But, how are you going to explain….” Randy shook his head. “Okay. But I don’t really understand why he’s here.”

“I knew Lureen,” Ennis put in, like he wanted that answered once and for all. 

“Bobby has to meet him. I’m not abandoning my son, and I’m not making a secret of how I live to him.”

“Jack, are you being open about yourself?” Randy asked with a world of alarm in his voice. “You haven’t told anybody about—”

“Told anybody what?” asked LaShawn, who had suddenly come up to them, but like most of the questions she asked, she didn’t expect an answer. “Jack, honey, ah am sorry that ah’m seeing you again in such circumstances.”

She kissed him on the cheek and hugged him, the smell of her perfume overwhelming the lilies that had been choking his nostrils already. She stayed talking to him for ten minutes without him needing to say anything past “uh-huh.” Ennis stepped away fast, making his way to a far corner. Randy, his face tense in caution, stayed close by his wife’s side. 

Before LaShawn came to an end point, the piped-in music stopped and one of the old ladies who was a friend of Faye’s from church stepped up to the electric organ by the front door. She began some hymn that sounded familiar, something low and soothing and sad. Everybody got quiet, and Pastor Miller began to make his way to the casket.

Suddenly, Jack was reminded of why he was really here. Lureen had died. He’d had his last words with her, and she would never get sarcastic and bitchy with him again. Seventeen years…. Guilt swamped him. He’d never been the husband to her he should have been, even back when he was trying, and now look at him. He’d almost forgotten how bad he felt, bowled over by Ennis, worried over his reaction to Randy, checking on Bobby. 

His eyes flew to the casket as if by looking he could make up for being the self-centered jerk that Lureen had once accused him of being. Cancer was such a damn enemy, robbing her of her good looks and finally silencing the sparkle that had always made her stand out in the crowd. Even Jack Twist, gay from the day he was born, had been pulled in by his sassy Lureen. She’d been hell to live with, especially in their last years, and they’d both needed the divorce, but she’d been unforgettable.

The reverend faced the room now, book in his hand. Over on the other side, L.D. stood with his head low down; Jack could see the top of his thinning head of hair. Faye was holding on to his arm with her lips folded so tightly they had about disappeared altogether. And Bobby stood next to them but apart, looking scared and alone, awful pale. 

“I gotta go,” Jack murmured to LaShawn, and without looking at Randy he crossed the patterned carpet, aware he was the only person in the room moving now, that eyes were on him, and that he’d already been told to keep his distance. Bobby watched him come close, and there was nothing but need in him, not fear or disgust. 

Jack settled next to his son. He’d been a bad father the last year, and he was glad that Bobby would be living somewhere else, not with him and Ennis, but at least he could do this now. 

“Good evening, family and friends of Lureen Newsome Twist,” the pastor began. “L.D., Faye, Bobby. Let us take a few moments for silent prayer.” 

Bobby brought his hand to his mouth but couldn’t stop his sob from getting out. Jack put his hand on his shoulder, wanting to do something more to help, but there wasn’t anything, and he knew it. He looked up and in the crowd spotted Ennis with his eyes on them. 

_Look. Here he is. My boy._

Pastor Miller kept it short. One song, one prayer he read from the book, and then he gave an announcement of the funeral tomorrow at ten o’clock, right across the street from the Johnson Funeral Home at First Baptist Church of Childress, where all who were believers were welcome for the service or at any time. When he was finished he looked over at the funeral director, who stepped forward and said to the crowd, “The family has requested that they be allowed to say good-bye in private. I will ask you to leave at this time.”

Jack stayed where he was as everybody else began to move. Now his arm was fully around Bobby, who was leaning against him, the boy finally not being strong. 

The simple act of closing the coffin was harder than he could have imagined. Faye started, going up to make her good-bye. The funeral director observing closely seemed wrong, since nobody should watch a mother at such a moment, and Jack thought of how this was a business for the man, how he’d seen this over and over. When it was his turn, L.D. stood there a long time, the tears streaming down his face and his mouth working, looking like all the flesh was falling off his bones. He stayed for so long that Pastor Miller went up to him, said a few words Jack didn’t catch, and then gently guided him over to stand next to Faye. 

Bobby stood with Jack for a few seconds without moving. “Go ahead,” Jack whispered. He squeezed his shoulder and then released him.

Bobby went up to her slowly. He touched her hand and then jerked his own back. 

“Here,” Bobby choked out, and he laid a picture of him as a baby sitting on Lureen’s lap on top of the body. Jack hadn’t known he was going to do that. 

Jack was last. He’d meant to bring the necklace with him and give it to her now, but he’d forgotten and it was back in its box in his room at the Comfort Inn. That was about right for him and Lureen, wasn’t it? He’d never been able to give….

He reached out, but suddenly L.D. was there, roaring “Don’t you touch her!” His big beefy hands pushed at Jack’s chest, shoving him backward and making him lose his balance and almost fall. His shoes stuttered across the carpet, but he caught himself and stood straight again. 

L.D. was on him again right away, not throwing a punch but hauling back and slapping his face with an open palm. The blow rang out loudly in the room, staggered Jack, and shame and anger reared up strong. His hands became fists that could knock that old man down. He breathed hard, as hard as the punch he wanted to send right into L.D.’s soft gut…. But somehow he managed to hold himself back. 

“Don’t you put your hands on me again, old man.”

“You ruined her life! You never made her happy!” L.D. lunged forward, but Jack stepped to the side and L.D. fell straight down to the floor on his hands and knees, moaning, “You ruined her life.” 

He was an old man without any strength left except for his hatred. Jack watched a man who had no respect for him, who had no concept that Jack was even a human being, sway like a dog on all fours, making anguished animal sounds, and he was glad to see him like that. 

He put a hand to his cheek, where it burned, but not as badly as his pride. He wished like hell that Bobby hadn’t seen that, his daddy being slapped in such a way. His faggot daddy. The boy was wide-eyed, looking from him to L.D. and back again. 

His hand dropped down to his side mainly cause he just couldn’t keep it up there any more, with all his energy robbed. He watched the pastor and Mr. Johnson help one of the town’s most prominent citizens back to his feet. L.D. stared at Jack for some long seconds, like he wanted to kill him but that wouldn’t be nearly bad enough, and Jack stared back, until Faye choked out, “L.D., stop.” And then she said, “Jack, I’m so sorry.” 

The funeral director reached for the casket lid. It seemed to go faster than he wanted it to, as if Lureen was well-rid of her life and her relations, and it closed with a thump. 

“Let’s go home,” L.D. said to Faye, and he took her elbow to push her roughly toward the door. Bobby, his eyes down now, followed them. 

“Mister Twist.” The reverend stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I hope you understand that Mister Newsome is under considerable stress, plus I don’t believe he ever accepted the divorce. It’s somewhat natural for him to—”

“Doesn’t give him any right.”

Outside, the heat slapped at his face too. Almost ten o’clock in late August meant the temperature had just dipped under ninety degrees, and there were high clouds overhead, barely visible with no moon. Jack trailed behind the others over to L.D.’s Lincoln Continental. He worried about L.D. driving with Bobby in the car, the shape he was in, but this late he hoped there wouldn’t be much traffic on the road.

Bobby got into the big back seat, wiping away more tears. “I’ll see you at the church tomorrow,” Jack told him, but the boy didn’t look up. The doors closed and the car drove away, leaving Jack alone. 

Except that Ennis had waited for him. 

Under the lights of the parking lot shared by the church and the funeral home, there were a few scattered cars, his own red Escort, and one white Dodge Ram with a man standing by its side. Jack stayed where he was, about as empty as the oil-splotched parking spot just left by his in-laws. He watched as Ennis made his slow way over. 

Ennis stopped in front of him. “Tough goings, I guess,” Ennis said.

Jack nodded. 

“Where you staying? Not with them.” He jerked his head in the direction the car had taken, down Third Street.

Jack stirred and found some way to say, “The Comfort Inn out on the highway.” 

“I saw that on the way over here. I’m at the Day’s Inn. First one I came to when I drove into town.” 

Jack just looked at him. Ennis checked around and sure seemed to be bothered by the truck parked close to the funeral home door.

“Why don’t you get the stuff you need for tomorrow,” Ennis got out in a rush. “Bring it over to where I’m at. Room 244 up on the second floor on the right side. You think…you think that’s safe?”

“I think….” _Down from Brokeback, see you around, a lonely figure in his rearview mirror, the whole rest of his life without what he’d found on the mountain, the most important thing._ “I think that’s what we should do.”

“Jack?” Ennis was suddenly close enough to put a hand on his elbow, and Jack was aware that he’d swayed. Shit, he was in worse shape than L.D. “You okay? You don’t look too good. You want me…. You want me to come with you, get your—”

Jack pulled free. Mr. Johnson or Pastor Miller could see them and put two and two together with L.D.’s outburst, figure it wasn’t the divorce he couldn’t get over, and spread the word. It might ruin Bobby’s life if the news got out. 

“No,” Jack said. “I’ll be okay. I’ll be right over. Room 244.” 

“That’s it. Come on, bud, the sooner we get going the sooner we get there.” 

Fumbling for the rental car key, turning the ignition. The left turn onto 287. The lights of the Ram behind him, Ennis herding him like their dogs on Brokeback had herded the sheep. _He came for me, the goddamned shithead asshole drove here for me, wonder where the horses…. Wonder if he saw Morgan…._ The Comfort Inn sign looming up suddenly, turning the wheel sharply to make it into the lot. A chill on his back because the Dodge kept driving down the road. Standing stupidly outside his door, not remembering where he’d put his door key. Inside, his clothes, suitcase, fuck, bring it all, everything he’d packed for San Antonio. _Damn, San Antonio. Gary. That kiss. Ennis, if you knew…. If L.D. knew, if he knew you were here he’d want to kill both of us. This isn’t a good idea, you should go home but I can’t send you away._ The slam of his car trunk and then stopping off at the lobby to drop off his key, out driving again, toward the edge of town, the Day’s Inn, newly built, the first motel past the city limits sign, Ennis must’ve been on the road all day, wouldn’t be able to go to work tomorrow, how long could he stay? 

Jack shook his head. The highway was dark but for the long cut of his headlights. He’d gone too far and driven right past…. Turning the wheel, the crunch of tires against the roadside gravel, a U-turn. A light up ahead, Day’s Inn, Vacancy, Childress Welcomes You. His engine dying, the weight of his suitcase, Room 244 on the second floor, impossibly far up, too many outside steps to climb, but then he’d given up and buried his heart at Pine Creek, hadn’t he, he’d buried his heart and found it again. The steps weren’t impossible, only hard, needed patience, here I am, the look on Ennis’s face as the door opened, Jack could be Aunt Sadie for all it showed. The look on his face as the door closed, though, everything, everything was there, Jesus Christ, Ennis, I need you and I know you need me, tell me—

“Come here.”

—the thud of the suitcase against the floor, reaching, taking his man in his arms, feeling Ennis’s arms going around him, desperate, fingers digging in to Jack’s back through his suit jacket. The touch of Ennis against his cheek, the warmth of him as they pulled each other close, as they fell into a hug.

That should’ve been enough, but he needed more, Christ, he wanted to crawl inside Ennis and look out from his eyes, feel his heart beating from his own chest, so he found those lips that had been for him from the beginning, that mouth, opening, eager, their mingled breathing sounding loud in the room, Ennis’s tongue forcing its way in familiar, twenty-one-years-this-past-July familiar, part of his life, grabbing Ennis around the waist, coming erect fast and knowing Ennis was in the same state because they were two bodies pressed together as one, gasping against his mouth, had to, had to, the bed, one big bed and two needful men, Lureen’s gone, Ennis, she’s gone and Bobby has a faggot dad he’s got to deal with, please—

“Ennis, let’s….”

—please, let’s me and you, yeah, let’s—

“Got to,” Ennis growled, hot hands running up under Jack’s shirt with force, pulling Jack over to where he wanted to be. 

Down on the mattress, working on those brand new suit pants, zipper open, dick out, going down swallowing Ennis whole the best thing he’d done in a week, Ennis gasping above him, cursing, best thing for sure, fingers in his hair gripping tight and then slowly pushing him away until his mouth was empty, somehow lube appearing, Ennis’s strong hands spreading it where Jack had been, they couldn’t fuck with his pants in the way, Jack jerked them down to his ankles, kicked one leg free and then went over onto his belly, up onto his knees, his own dick screaming to be touched, and then Ennis was behind him with hands grabbing his hips. 

The best, excruciating moments of wanting it so badly and knowing he was going to get what he wanted. Soon, soon….

Jack breathed out, relaxing his muscle like he knew how to do, and Ennis came into him, steady, determined, real, and Jack took him in, more, more, more, all the way, _uhh_ as Ennis bottomed out, _uhh,_ the skin of his ass prickled as it was rubbed by the thatch of hair, he put his head down because he was on his elbows now, wanted to feel it all as he heaved back and forth, as Ennis drove into him, the quick slide out, the shove back in, he could hear it, the frantic, sweet sounds of them together after their time apart, Jack groaned, can’t get enough of you, can’t get enough, give it to me, flying on the wind, the snap of hips, this was where they’d begun and where they could always go back to begin again, together like this, two men fucking, the two of them fucking, making love, finding you, Ennis, finding me, find me….

Here. Here we are. Here. 

Ennis leaned over, his arm went around, yes, yes, take it, please, take me, that magic first touch, fingers pulling on him, nothing better, Jack gasped, gasped again, Ennis thrust once more, twice…. 

Rightness at last. Rightness. 

*****

The hotel digital clock glowed two-fifteen when Jack opened his eyes again. He was on his side, on the side of the bed that was his back home. As they usually did, him and Ennis had drifted apart in sleep. Slow breathing behind reassured him. Jack was sticky, stinky, half-dressed, and he had to piss. After a minute fighting it, he forced himself to move, but he only got as far as rising on one elbow before he was stopped. 

“Where you going?” Ennis mumbled, his voice soft and sleep-clogged, but there wasn’t anything soft about the way he pulled Jack down, or how he hitched forward until they were spooned together as tight as could be, or the way Ennis’s hand tightened around his waist like he might be a horse trying to gallop away. 

Jack let himself relax against the pillow, and he released his body to the mattress again. He didn’t want to go anywhere. This was all sorts of good. He matched Ennis’s arm around him with his own, squeezed, and held on.

Fifteen minutes later he couldn’t ignore the call of nature any more. He rolled off the bed in a quick move, kicked off his pants, and found his way in the dark to the bathroom. There he pissed, cleaned himself, splashed water on his face, and took the rest of his clothes off. He wanted to leave everything on the floor, but he had tomorrow to think of. Today. The wooden hangers from the short rod by the sink clanked against each other as he took one to put his pants on, then another for his had-it shirt, and then from the glow of the bathroom light he went looking for his black sports jacket, the only thing he’d had with him right to wear to the viewing. 

Ennis stumbled past him, spent time in the bathroom, and came out naked. When he got back into bed, Jack rolled to center, reaching, to find pure-Ennis beneath his stretched fingers that rubbed across biceps, nipple, hairy chest, nipple and then back again. 

“Come here,” Jack whispered, tugging. “Need you over here.”

He rocked onto his back and urged Ennis over, and Ennis came, laying himself belly-down along the length of Jack but a little off to the side, holding himself up on an elbow first, then releasing his weight until they were pressed together completely. Jack clutched at his back and let one hand wander north until it was anchored in strands of honey hair. He nuzzled against Ennis’s ear, inhaled the scent of the man, and a wash of tension flowed out of him. Here was what he needed. He needed weight against him this night, to hold him down, to remind him of the solidity of what they had. The tacky warmth of Ennis’s skin all over him was better than pot or whiskey or even Brokeback memories. 

“You’re… You’re...” Ennis murmured. Jack felt Ennis lose his lips against his neck for a long time, not sucking to leave a mark but gently, breathing. Jack closed his eyes. After a while he sighed. 

Somehow the sigh wanted to turn into something more. He tried to hold it back. 

“Go on and cry. It’s okay,” Ennis whispered. 

A kiss landed lightly under his eye. All this stuff…. And Ennis here. He couldn’t cry in front of L.D., couldn’t cry in front of Bobby, didn’t deserve to cry because he’d been the one who’d asked for the divorce. He didn’t know what the tears were really for. But he didn’t have a choice. 

Ennis slid off him only to gather him up in willing arms, pushing Jack’s head against his shoulder and holding him there with a spread hand. “Baby, you let this out. It’s okay with me.” 

Clumsy fingers patted his shoulder. He fell asleep with Ennis touching him.

*****

The sun was shining through a crack in the drapes when Jack woke for good. His stomach clenched, because the first thought that hit him was that the funeral was today, and everything that went with it. Every one of his bones ached. 

But then he rolled over to check the rest of the room and saw Ennis standing there like Jack had never seen him, dressed up fine in a good white dress shirt and his gray suit pants, in front of an ironing board with an iron in his hand. He glanced up at Jack. 

“About time you woke up, it’s way past eight. I think I finally got the hang of this thing.” 

Jack sat up and yawned. “What…” his jaw snapped shut. “What’re you doing?”

“Last thing before I left, I remembered you’d need to look good for all this stuff here. So I brought your good navy blue suit for today. It got wrinkled some.” 

He held up the pants, then stuck them over a hanger and limped over to put them on the rod. 

Jack thought he’d rarely witnessed such an astonishing sight: Ennis Del Mar ironing clothes like maybe he’d seen Alma and his mom do. But he wasn’t going to mention it for fear Ennis would disappear in a puff of smoke. Jack got out of bed and walked up behind him, slid his hands around Ennis’s waist, and put his chin on his shoulder. 

“What happened to your foot?”

He could just see the edges of a smile. “Wasn’t looking where I was walking.” 

“You asshole.” Jack chucked him with his chin, then turned him around and pushed him against the wall next to the TV. 

“Hey, now, be careful, I got good clothes—”

“I don’t give a damn. Good morning.” He took Ennis’s face between his hands and kissed him softly, the first kiss of the day. 

“Mmmmm,” Ennis sounded in his throat, and his arms came up to circle Jack. 

Jack pulled back enough to see his surprising man in the light. Ennis must’ve taken a shower, because when Jack touched his hair, it was wet. 

“I miss the curls,” he said quiet. “Remember when your hair was curly? There’s hardly any of that left now.” 

“Years ago. You’re remembering when we were kids.”

“We were never kids together, Ennis, because you brought out the man in me. You want to kiss me again?” 

Ennis quirked a smile, complained, “Morning breath,” and then of a sudden yanked him close. “I could kiss you all day long, Twist,” he said rough and low, their lips about an inch apart. 

If only they could: a long lazy day that Jack used to dream of, the sun shining on them as they did ordinary things together. They didn’t have that, especially today, but they had this minute, and Jack set his mouth to Ennis’s, trying to forget. 

“Bud,” Ennis whispered when they parted, “time’s wasting.”

“I know,” Jack sighed. He pushed himself away. “I’ll go get cleaned up.” 

In the bathroom he saw his travel bag had been put on the counter. He must have been sleeping the sleep of the truly exhausted for Ennis to do all that he’d done without waking up. 

When he got out of the shower he wrapped a towel around his waist and shaved, careful of his sore cheek, a lot sorer now after L.D.’d had his way with it. Then he went out into the room, calling “Ennis?” for no special reason. Nobody was there to answer, and he began to put on clothes for the funeral. He wondered if Ennis had thought to bring clean underwear too, went rooting around, and was relieved when he found that he had. That man…. By the time he was tying his shined black shoes, Ennis came in through the door with two coffees and a bag that said _Donuts._

They sat at the little round table in front of the only window, on cheap wooden chairs, and divided up the food. Jack wanted to open the drapes for the sunshine to come in, but he knew better than to do that. 

“When did you leave home?”

“Sunday, around noon. Only I left from Taos, cause I had to buy clothes. Spent a goddamned fortune.”

“Noon from Taos? You just made it last night, then.”

“The worst part was finding where the funeral home was.” 

“Who’s watching the horses?”

“Floyd.”

“Ah. Did Janice and Morgan….”

“We’ll do it next weekend. It’s okay.” Ennis chewed and swallowed. He favored jelly donuts, and Jack noted he was being careful not to let any drop on his shirt. “How’s Bobby doing?” Ennis asked.

“You saw him last night?”

“He’s a fine looking boy, even better than his pictures. Looks a lot like you but for his light hair.”

“He’s all broken up, about what you’d expect with his world turned upside down.” Jack put the donut he’d been holding back down on the napkin. “On the other thing…Lureen told him about you and me. I don’t know for sure, we haven’t had a chance to talk much, but I think we can work it out.” 

Ennis exhaled. “That’d be…that’d be real good.” 

“Yeah.” 

“So. How’s L.D. been? He been giving you trouble?”

“Nothing’s changed. He’s a bastard from hell. Worse, because now he knows about how I am and blames me for…. He’s said a few things in front of Bobby.”

“Shithead.”

“It seems Lureen asked that they learn to live with me being with you. For Bobby’s sake. Faye’s set on doing that, but it’s not easy for her either.” Powdered sugar was sprinkled across his lap. He brushed it off. “Looks like you’re dressed for the funeral.” 

“Yeah.”

“You think you should?”

“Don’t know. I thought….” Ennis picked up his coffee, drained it, and set the cup down. “Not like I’ll sit with you.”

“I figured I’d sit with Bobby. If L.D. doesn’t raise a fuss.”

“I’d sit in the back, if you want me there. You want me there?”

It was a hell of a bad idea. It made the skin across the back of his neck crawl at the same time that it made his heart thunder. Ennis was stepping way, way out of his comfort zone, but even if it was the worst idea either one of them had ever had, here was a sign that if wind blew across rock for long enough, the rock would change. Jack wasn’t going to let Ennis’s fine new clothes get wasted.

“Yeah, I want you there,” he said, steadily, like it wasn’t life and death, Earl and a boy’s fears, living together or not living together that they were discussing. “But how about if you don’t go to the cemetery? And not to the house afterwards. The funeral’s more public, but seems there won’t be near that many people at the other places, so it would be best if you stay away from them. Too many questions at the wrong time…. You okay with that?”

Relief came up strong in Ennis’s eyes. “Sounds good.” He nodded toward the clock. “When did you want to leave? It’s after nine already.” 

“I guess I’d better go. I don’t really know what the arrangements are. Nobody’s thought to tell me…. I want to make sure I’m at the church when Bobby gets there.” He stood up and reached for the empty donut bag. 

“I’ll take care of this,” Ennis said, grabbing it before he could. “You go get your jacket.” 

Jack got it from where Ennis had hung it up. Maybe it didn’t look as fine as it might have if it had come straight from a dry cleaner’s, but it was pretty good. Jack shrugged it on, turned around, and found Ennis right there. 

“You’ll follow?”

“In a while. You gonna be okay?”

Jack nodded tightly. “Yeah. I will.” 

“All right, then. See you later.” 

They kissed like they often did at the beginning or the end of days, naturally, and Jack went toward the door that would open to take him out into the world.

He stopped with his hand on the knob. 

“Ennis?”

“Yeah?”

With his head bowed low, he said, “Thanks for being here.”

A hand rubbing over his back, fingers up into his hair, and then away. 

“You bet.” 

*****

Ennis watched Jack drive away through the crack in the drapes and then he paced around, not knowing what to do with himself. The motel room felt small when he was the only one in it and when his mind was driving down a blacktop highway, headed for a hard day. He forced himself to be still and put the TV on some morning show. For a whole minute he stood in front of it and watched, but it was better with the sound off.

He went over to the sink to look in the mirror. It was weird to see himself dressed up. It was like there was a different person looking back at him, somebody who maybe could be a banker or a salesman like Jack, who could live in a city, somebody who could make the drive to Childress and show up at that funeral home like he didn’t have any cause to worry. He was worried, all right, but he was glad that he’d made the trip anyway. Last night…. Jack had needed him. He looked at his lips in the mirror, where he could feel Jack’s mouth on him still. It was better that Ennis was here with his man than if he was back home wondering how things were, worried that what kept them together wasn’t working any more, that he’d managed to kill it.

His gaze wandered down to his tie. Maybe he should have sprung for a new one, cause this one he was wearing wasn’t anything to brag about. And the knot wasn’t right, not like he’d had a lot of practice doing up such things. He undid it and tried again. It wasn’t that much better, but it would do. Then he put the top of Jack’s toothpaste back on, looked at their stuff spread out…. Had he paid for this room by the night or did it make a difference how many were staying here? He had no more experience with motels than he did with ties. And that bed…. The sheets flung back didn’t show any shit marks, a miracle considering how neither of them had been thinking of such things. He’d just needed Jack…. 

Ennis put the bed back together casual-like, hoping that the maids wouldn’t have any thoughts at all or that they’d seen it all and didn’t care. That’s what Jack would say. He moved over to the window and pushed the drape aside to look down on the parking lot. There weren’t many cars and trucks left. Most folks were already on their way, wherever they were headed, but it didn’t matter if they were there or not there, Ennis told himself. It didn’t matter about the maids or the two tubes of toothpaste either, cause people weren’t looking to kill the queers. Duncan probably didn’t even know Jack was in town. It wasn’t like there’d been billboards announcing Lureen Twist’s passing. 

His imagination was too strong. Lots of times during the long years, that’d been all that got him through the months between Jack-trips, but maybe that’d been what made his fears so real that he’d been near paralyzed. He’d always thought he could hear people talking….

He put on his gray suit jacket, then ran fingers through his hair and wished he could wear a hat. But it wouldn’t be respectful. 

Time to go. He shut off the TV as he walked by, opened the door, and walked down the stairway like the ordinary man he’d always wanted to be, except that ordinary could never include Jack. 

The church was half full by the time he got there, and it was a big place. He paused in the back to scan the crowd and felt some relief when he spotted the dark head he was looking for way up front. Jack was sitting in the same pew with Bobby, the first or maybe the second one, and on the other side of the church was L.D. and his wife. That was good, that there was distance between the two of them, from how Jack said L.D. was. The coffin was in the front of the church, dark and sad with flowers draped on top.

Ennis practically jumped out of his skin when a sharp voice said, “Please take the order of service.” A fat woman held out a paper toward him. A tag that he could barely manage to make out was pinned on her big bosom. It said _First Baptist Church of Childress Greeter._ She asked, “You’re here for the funeral, aren’t you?” 

He didn’t know why she asked. Why else would he be in the church? What did he look like, that she said that to him? 

“I’m a friend of the Twist family,” he said and took the paper. 

A pew toward the back, on the same side as Jack so he could keep an eye on things, had nobody in it. Ennis side-stepped in and sat in the middle, hoping he could keep it to himself. Then he told himself he should have gone where there was other people sitting, not appear alone where people would look at him and wonder who he was. 

It had been a long time since he’d sat in a church. He hadn’t even been able to bring himself to stay in the chapel at the Vietnam Memorial, but life had laughed at him and Jack and set their feet on paths so they were both here today, though sitting far apart. It looked like this church was doing okay, white-painted with a handsome, dark wood altar, and banners hung around on both sides along the balcony. The Greeters were getting people to go and sit up there. Lureen’s funeral would be well-attended, though he doubted that would be any comfort to anybody grieving for her.

Some of the banners had a home-made look to them, and one hanging close showed three words, yellow on green felt: _Love, Compassion, Respect._ They sounded like liberal ideas to him, and he doubted this was a liberal church in the middle of Texas. He remembered that Jack had said Bobby had a church group meeting that last time he’d visited. It was possible the kids were responsible for the words of wisdom. 

Ennis shifted on the hard wood of the pew as he thought of meeting Bobby. It had to be done. The sooner the better so the boy knew how things were for sure and didn’t get any notions of Jack coming back here to live. Ennis wanted to kill that idea before it was born, and showing himself was probably the best way. He doubted there’d be much love or respect shown when it happened. Putting himself in the kid’s shoes…. 

Respect. No man would respect him if he knew what he was. Except Jack maybe.

Ennis looked down at the paper in his hands. He’d go a long way for Jack to think well on him. It seemed like, in the end, it was one of the most important things. What really mattered. 

He put his glasses on and tried to concentrate on the words on the paper. It was lucky he’d remembered his glasses, swiped off the nightstand at the last minute as he was locking up the house, which was when he’d thought of Jack’s clothes too. He hoped he hadn’t forgotten anything….

Four people walking up the aisle caught his attention. They seemed determined to find a place to sit downstairs, and one of them was a tall, bearded man, Jack’s old…. Randall Malone. Ennis pressed his lips together. He was good-looking and wore a fine suit that didn’t seem to come from a small town store, but then Ennis knew he was a foreman. And scared, it seemed, that Jack had let out his secret. 

Ennis watched the two men and two women push their way into a pew on the other side of the church, four or five rows in front of him, and then tore his eyes away when he thought he’d been staring. Shit. He didn’t want to see Malone anyway. 

It hurt, seeing in the flesh who Jack had taken up with. Ennis had thought that when they went out to New Mexico, he wouldn’t ever have to deal with the foreman or with the coach again, and that he could push the knowing of them far away. But it seemed life not only had brought Jack and him to a church together, it had made sure his nose was rubbed in the ways Jack had cheated on him. 

Ennis stretched out his leg, cause the ankle was hurting. It throbbed like it meant it, bad enough that he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t, but there wasn’t anything he could do except not look at the man Jack called Randy, not think of the coach, and just fucking read what was in his hand and remind himself that Jack had asked him to be here.

_Order of Service. Funeral. Lureen Newsome Twist._

It got past ten o’clock and still nothing was started. There was movement up front as L.D. stood in his pew, looked down the aisle, and then over at Jack. There was some gesturing going on, the old man throwing his weight around, and then Jack stood and came walking to the back. Ennis could see his gaze skipping over people, sweeping over the last ones in the church, and then landing on him. The look sent his way made him glad he’d come. 

*****

After the funeral, Ennis drove back to the motel and changed his new clothes for jeans and a good shirt. He stood undecided at what to do next. Jack was always after him to eat, and he didn’t have anything else to do. He could go for lunch or he could stay right where he was—where nobody could find him and nobody would see him—the rest of the afternoon. He reached for his hat.

Ennis turned north and drove for a ways, hoping to find some place to eat on the very edge of town or past it, far enough away from everywhere that nobody who might have been at the church would be eating there. But there weren’t any businesses on 83 north at all, and he was forced to go south and try to find something there. By the time he had to admit that the only restaurants or fast food joints were along route 287, the main highway that led to Amarillo on one side and Fort Worth on the other, he was hungry for real. He drove past a McDonald’s and a Whataburger and then pulled into a Dairy Queen, cause he liked the food and the place reminded him of Junior. 

At the counter he got chicken fingers with cream gravy, Texas toast and fries, thinking of bringing it back to the truck and eating there. Instead he took a seat in a booth with a good view of all the doors and both parking lots, but there wasn’t any need for his sharp eyes. 

Dairy Queen offered free re-fills. He filled up his Coke and got back in the truck. No way was he going back to the Day’s Inn. Instead, the Ram could show him this town. Who looked at a man driving a truck? Nobody. Being on the move sounded good to him. 

Over the next hour or more he drove all over Childress. Main Street and the red-bricked downtown became familiar to him, as well as all the cars and trucks this noontime that proved Childress wasn’t dying out like other small Texas towns. By mistake, he took a road to the south and found himself in the cattle and cotton country that surrounded the town. On the way back, his truck was almost caught by a long freight train going through, but he managed to pass the railroad crossing just in time. As he pulled away, he watched the railroad cars in his rearview mirror, rumbling by so slowly, cutting off his view of what lay on the other side. 

For some reason, an intersection north of downtown had a red light that lasted a good long time. He looked again in the mirror to see behind him. There sat a young man in a work truck, about the age he’d been on the day Alma had asked him if he knew somebody by the name of Jack. He’d thought faster that day than he ever had before or since; he’d said that Jack was a fishing buddy. Not the man he’d kissed like there was no tomorrow up on Brokeback, the man he couldn’t seem to tear from his heart or his memories. Not that man, some other man. 

As the day got hotter, Ennis passed Childress High School where Bobby’s friends from the night before would be learning their high school stuff that he’d never had a chance at. He found the Childress Country Club and the small, fancy part of town. The single strip airport a mile farther on looked a lot like the Angel Fire airport that Jack had flown out of more than once. He looked at it with something like a prayer. 

A turn of the wheel and he was out on 287 again, headed to the east edge of town where he went past the Newsome Farm Equipment dealership. He drove farther to where his memory told him that him and Jack’d had the flat tire. A spot under a straggly tree was likely, though everything looked different in the light of day, with temperatures in the nineties instead of being cold enough for snow. He didn’t stop, cause what was the use? He didn’t know why he was there anyway, except to go past it and leave it in the dust, leave the scared man he’d been then in the dust, the man he was shamed to remember. Back then, he’d driven through Childress going seventy, but here he was again, maybe still scared, but different, cause he had Jack pulling him forward. 

He’d been back at the motel for almost an hour, flipping the TV channels with the remote and resisting the idea of buying some smokes, wondering when Jack would be back and if he’d have to find dinner by himself, when the phone rang. He jerked up from where he’d been propped on the pillow and turned quickly toward it, like the thing was out to hurt him…. Only one man knew he was there, but he couldn’t take the chance it wasn’t that one man. 

“Yeah?”

“It’s me.” 

It wasn’t so much relief as it was some sort of gladness, cause it was always a good thing to him to hear Jack’s voice. He glanced at the bedside clock. It was four thirteen. “How’re you doing? You okay?”

“Fucking terrible. The goddamned car won’t start.” 

“That car you rented?”

“Yeah. I think it’s the alternator. Anyway, I’m stuck. Could you come get me?”

Shit. Jack had to be kidding. Drive right up in front of everybody like they was…. Pick Jack up? “Uh, I don’t know. Why can’t—”

“Come on, Ennis, you want me to call L.D. and ask him for a lift?”

“Call…. Where are you? You ain’t at his house?”

“No, I’m not at his fucking house. I’m at my house.”

“What? What’re you doing there?”

He could hear the weariness even over the phone. “Bobby asked me to come over and get some things…. He doesn’t want to come here, and I guess I know why.”

“Finding his mom like that.”

“Yeah. So, can you come and get me? You remember the address? You go east on the highway, then turn north on Eleventh Street. You think you can find me?”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be waiting. See you.” 

Ennis put the phone down reluctantly. He squinted as he stood by the bed, cutting down the light coming to his eyes until it disappeared altogether. If he’d wanted to see what Jack’s house looked like, he could have gone there any time in the last couple hours that he’d been driving around. He didn’t want to have pictures in his mind of those years, Jack living here because Ennis had been holding them apart. He didn’t want to know how nice the house was that their place in Eagle Nest couldn’t match. 

He picked up his hat and put it back on. He was here for Jack, right? If Jack needed him at his house, then he’d better get going. 

Turn on 287, turn on Eleventh Street, keep his eyes open. This was the part of town near the country club, the right neighborhood for sure. It wasn’t long before he spotted it, Olney Avenue, where Jack had lived.

Ennis slowed as he drove down the street. In the middle was the address that he’d memorized long ago. Fine-looking gray brick, up on a little rise, two story, the best kind of house he’d seen in the town, in a small development that had been new when the Twist family had moved in ten years before. 

Jack’s rental car was in the driveway, with not a person stirring, and it seemed okay to park his pick-up by the curb. There were two trees in the front yard, one a red oak, the other one he didn’t know, and pots of geraniums by the front door, on their last legs cause they hadn’t been watered. This was where Jack had come home after their fishing trips. Ennis imagined him pulling into the garage on the side and hauling his weary body out of the cab. He tried to imagine how Jack had felt then. He remembered how he’d been at the end of their weeks together. How had they done that? For every hello a good-bye, with every word knowing there’d be silence for months. In the first kiss had already been the fear of their last one, so nothing had been right even when it’d been the best it could be. 

How had they done that? And while he was thinking on things that he didn’t understand, how had he let Jack go last week with such hard words and no good-bye at all? What had he been thinking, to let his man go on such terms? He must have been crazy. He was fucking lucky that they were gonna get the chance to make things right again, cause that’s how it was gonna happen even if it hadn’t happened yet.

Ennis eased out of the truck, feeling a chill along his back like maybe Lureen was looking down on him, telling him that this was her house and not his, that he had no rights here. But he had rights to Jack. Rights that Jack had handed him that rang more true than the wedding vows Jack and Lureen had taken cause she was pregnant. With the rights went duties to his man. Jack hadn’t called Randall Malone to give him a lift, had he? Who was Jack living with, anyway?

That thought got him up the front steps, where he picked up three newspapers. The door was cracked open, and when he knocked it swung open. He stepped inside. “Jack?”

“In here.”

He closed the door behind him and turned the lock, dropped the newspapers on the entranceway tile that looked like marble, and walked to his left into a small living room. Jack was sitting back on a sofa with his legs spread wide, his hands on his thighs. Ennis had never seen anything as fancy as that sofa, white with a pattern on it, with dark wood running along the sides and along the back, wood legs showing, like it should be in a museum. Jack was looking sad, and lost, and out of place on it, gazing up at him with big eyes. With his suit that brought out the shine of his dark hair, he seemed more like a businessman from New York, or maybe a movie star faced with tough times, cause he’d loosened his red tie and the top button of his blue shirt. 

But he was Jack, and that had to be good, even if they were where he’d lived with Lureen.

Ennis took off his hat. “Hey, bud, here I am.”

Jack held out his hand. “Sit with me,” he said, his voice deep and throaty. 

It wasn’t hard to figure what he was thinking. Ennis in his living room was a sight that he’d maybe wanted more than anything, but had never in this lifetime expected to happen. 

Ennis walked across the deep green carpet and took Jack’s hand, looking down on him while Jack looked up at him, each of them serious. Ennis was aware of how this was a day not like other days for them, and he was fucking glad that—

“I am fucking glad that you’re in town,” Jack said, his eyes speaking as much as his lips, and then he let Ennis go.

Ennis set himself down like he was sitting on eggshells, on the very edge of the cushion while Jack was pushed back. They sat without saying anything for a while, and then Ennis offered, “I can see why Lureen didn’t want a monkey like you on this couch.” 

“Yeah.”

Warmth against the small of his back said that Jack was touching him there, his hand pressing. It felt good. Ennis breathed and breathed again, not wanting to move but figuring they should. 

Jack heaved himself to his feet. “Come on, while you’re here you get the grand tour.”

Ennis didn’t want a tour, but he could tell it was important. He thought about how Jack had looked when he’d seen the mare from Floyd, and how somebody like Jack could have any man he wanted but that it was somehow Ennis he wanted. He ducked his head and said sure, he’d take that tour. They went out into the garage where the air conditioning didn’t reach, like walking into an oven, and Jack showed him where he’d kept their camping gear in a built-in storage unit. “Gave it all to Goodwill,” Jack said. 

They detoured by the dining room where there was a bottle of Maker’s Mark bourbon already out on the table, with a shot glass that’d been used. “You want one?” Jack asked.

Ennis didn’t say no. Jack got another glass, poured them both liquor, and they each downed their share in one go. Not like Ennis needed the drink to get him through the rest of the house, but it wouldn’t hurt. 

Jack showed him the kitchen, where one night, when Jack had come home late from one of their fishing trips, he’d thrown up in the sink cause he’d been drinking on the way home. Lureen had come down and found him. “The next morning, she damn near mopped the floor with me, she was so mad. That was the last time I drank so much and drove too.” 

“Good for her.”

“She was like Joe Aguirre.”

“What?”

“Protective of her stock. That was me and Bobby. No matter what she thought of me, I was hers, with her ring on my finger. She was going to make sure I didn’t kill myself on the road while I was wearing her brand.” 

They went upstairs to the back bedroom that was Bobby’s. Jack took a few steps in and then stopped. “I’ve never seen his room neat like this. I guess Gracie’s been here.” 

“Gracie?”

“Our cleaning lady. She comes in every week.”

Jack hadn’t ever said…. He’d not said lots of things during their long years. Ennis knew he wanted to make up for that, to open his mouth, tell all, and keep telling.

Jack was still saying, “Can you believe that, me having a cleaning lady? The boy from Lightning Flat who wasn’t any good to anybody. What a joke.” He looked over his shoulder, toward the front of the house. “I bet…I bet she’s made up our bed too. I mean, where Lureen was.”

Ennis stood back in the doorway, not wanting to touch anything when the boy probably hated his guts. He watched while Jack got some clothes out and put them in a backpack. Then Jack went searching through shelves in a bookcase— _he needs some books for school, especially 1984, I’ve got to make sure I get that, and he asked for his Bible too_ —and finally shoved a pillow in Ennis’s hand. 

“Let’s go. Bobby’s probably wondering where I am.” 

But Jack paused at the top of the stairs and then went down the hall to the master bedroom. Ennis followed him and stood behind as he confronted the king-sized bed that seemed twice as big as their bed back in Eagle Nest. Jack shrugged as if Ennis’s hand was on his shoulder. “Just had to see…. You know, make it more real.”

Ennis took the backpack while Jack put the liquor away and shut off the lights, and then they stepped outside. Jack locked the door behind them, and Ennis stood on the top step checking around. An old lady was walking a dog down the street, but it didn’t seem she’d care about him and Jack. 

They walked down to the truck and put Bobby’s things in the cab. Jack got the rental information from the glove compartment of the Ford, and they were set to go. Ennis turned the ignition, but before he put the Ram in gear he looked up at the house again and felt that he could move past wishing he hadn’t seen it.

“You had a real nice house. A good place to raise your boy.”

Jack was looking at it too. “I said good-bye last year, and I haven’t missed one thing about it since I left. Thanks for…. I don’t know why I wanted you to see it. Glad you did, though.” 

Faye and L.D. lived in a big house on a big hill that you could see from a distance away. There were still some cars and trucks parked in the long, sloping driveway. Ennis pulled up behind the last one.

“You want me to come back later? Or maybe I should wait.”

“Yeah, would you? I don’t think now’s the time for you and Bobby….”

“Hell, no. But are you sure you shouldn’t stay with him tonight, eat dinner with him? I can go it alone, don’t need….”

Jack looked undecided. “Let me check on how things are. I'll come out and let you know, okay?” 

Ennis sat there for a good ten minutes, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, with no sign of Jack. Then a couple came walking down the drive and got into one of the cars. Though they had enough room to squeeze by him, he backed out anyway and put the truck down by the curb. He could see both ways parked like this. Not that he expected a black and white cop car to come roaring up behind him, arresting him for worrying about what was happening to Jack in L.D.’s house instead of thinking on some woman, but it was best to be ready for anything.

He had plenty of time to get ready for anything, cause two more couples came out of the house and two more cars drove away while he waited. All four of those people made his face burn. They looked at him like he had no business being there, which wasn’t true, but none of them would understand that.

Finally, more than thirty minutes had passed and he was wondering what to do, when at last one person came out of the house, this time Jack. He thundered down the drive, pulling off his jacket and his tie as he came closer. He jerked open the passenger door, got in, and pulled it shut. 

“Let’s get out of here.”

“What happened?”

“Goddamn it, drive.”

All roads led out of town, cause Childress was small, not more than a few thousand. Ennis wished that they could swing by the motel, pack up, and get out of there. He’d been here less than twenty-four hours, but he’d had enough of this town. It held bad, bad memories for both him and Jack, he was always looking over his shoulder, and now fucking L.D. must have opened his mouth to hurt Jack, he was sure of it, or maybe more than opening his mouth. 

He turned due east off Newsome’s street onto a substantial looking road that crossed the empty prairie. He stole a look at Jack. That mark on his cheek, was that worse than it’d been the night before? He’d barely had the chance to look this morning, but now it seemed….

“Did L.D. take a swing at you?”

Jack had been brooding, looking out the rolled-up window. Now he moved his hand down from where he’d been leaning on it. “Not today.” 

“What?”

“Oh, drop it. Shit, you’ve got air conditioning in this truck, why the hell won’t you use it? It’s roasting in here.” 

He leaned forward and got the AC going, sending a blast of cold air right in Ennis’s face. Ennis batted the vent around so it was on Jack, not him. Jack went back to studying the highway, and Ennis went back to steaming at a man he’d only ever seen from across a room in a funeral home.

The road turned into a farm-to-market numbered road, 1033, with a little traffic at this hour, close to six in the evening, folks headed for home after a day’s work. Him and Jack, in normal days, if they were to ever have normal days again, would be finishing up eating, and he’d be getting ready for work with the horses, which meant that Jack would be the one starting to steam. 

“Ennis?”

They passed a lonely billboard that said State Farm Insurance in Wichita Falls would take care of your needs. Parts of it were shredded and hanging down to the ground. It was probably ten years old. 

“Yeah?”

“Where are we going?”

“Quanah,” Ennis said. 

“Quanah? That’s the next town over.”

“I know. It’s time to eat. Did you eat at the house?”

“Hell, no. I’m starved.”

“Okay, then. There’s got to be some place to eat in Quanah. You know anybody there?”

Ennis looked over at him. Jack was regarding him like he was a madman, but that it was sort of good, that he liked where Ennis was going. “Just Dan Stephenson, and he’s okay.”

“This road looks like it’ll join the highway soon, am I right?”

“Another couple miles and we’ll be on 287. Then fifteen minutes further on, and we’re in downtown Quanah. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.” 

Seemed Jack was willing to talk now. Ennis waited while his good tires took them to the merge with the main road, until they were eating up the mileage markers again, and then he asked, “You gonna tell me what happened?”

Jack sighed. “I don’t know why I let him get to me. The old man’s lost his only child, but he’s still a bastard.”

“What’d he do, get into it with you in front of folks?”

“That was his specialty at the dealership. I guess anywhere. Whatever he could do to puff himself up and bring me down. Now with Bobby staying with them….” Jack shook his head. “That can’t go on. I’ve got to get him away from them. Not that he wants to be there. Since he’s grown, Bobby hasn’t got on with his granddad.”

“He shows some sense then.”

“Yeah, he does. Everybody was gone. There was only Faye’s best friend from church and her husband left, and they were in the kitchen helping to clean up. Bobby was helping me stack up the folding chairs they’d rented. I don’t know what set him off, but L.D. came in and started in on how I’d killed Lureen.”

“What?”

“He’d been drinking too, which didn’t make anything better. Said the divorce was my idea, and it was the stress that gave her cancer. He told Bobby to get away from me, because I’d killed his mom.” 

“Jesus Christ.” 

“Yeah. Nothing went better from there.” Jack rubbed around his whole face. “Damn, I feel like a coward to have left, but L.D. was screaming, and Faye and her friend were trying to get him to quiet down, and Bobby had already headed upstairs to the room he’s in…. I figured the best thing was for me to do the same thing and get out. What else could I do? It was either that or start beating on the man.” 

“You did the right thing.”

“Ella and Rob were there, and I was sure that the next thing L.D. would start on was me being a faggot. So far he’s kept that to family, in front of Bobby and Faye. I didn’t want to take the chance. Fuck.” 

A little foreign car behind them came right up to his bumper. Ennis moved over and let it pass. 

“You know that ain’t true, right?”

Jack went back to looking out his window, but he didn’t pretend he didn’t know what Ennis meant. “Oh, yeah, I know. I know we can’t tell what gave her cancer. Nobody knows why that happens. That wants to land on my shoulders, and sometimes it’s there, but mainly I keep it off.” 

Jack was quiet for a minute. “I want to tell you something, about when I told Lureen I wanted a divorce. You okay with that?”

If he’d gone to the house on Olney Avenue, then he could hear what Jack had to say. “Yeah,” he said. “Go ahead.” 

“That last trip for you and me, when we had the fight, you remember? You hadn’t even left the parking lot when I knew what I had to do. Fucking worst moment of my life. Along with all the other worst moments you gave me.”

Ennis kept driving and kept listening. He’d come to Childress for this, right? 

“I spent the whole trip to Texas planning it. I got home as Lureen was going to bed.” Jack drove a hand through his hair. “I was afraid that if I didn’t say it right then I’d back out. I’d just let everything keep on going nowhere, the way it had been, until there wasn’t anything left of me to save. That’s how I looked at it, it was divorce or…. or nothing good.”

Jack stopped for a couple breaths, but Ennis held his.

“I marched myself up to the bedroom like I was some soldier on a mission, needing courage, only the mission was me. She was sitting on the bed, putting on hand cream like she did every night. She looked up at me, expecting nothing much. It’d been more than a year since we’d screwed. I said, ‘Lureen, I want a divorce,’ as if it was something normal.”

The tires hummed against the road, and he could see the outskirts of Quanah ahead. “How’d she take it?”

Jack heaved in another breath. “A lot better than when I told you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, up at Pine Creek…. I always thought of that as divorcing you, same as I did for her. I had to leave both of you to find a life for myself.”

Lureen had taken it like a lady, Jack had always said, but him…. He’d spent a week howling at the moon. The worst. Jack was always going on how the way they were living now was like the marriage he’d never had, and now here he was talking about divorcing Ennis, when what they’d had back then was so small….

“When I told Lureen,” Jack went on, “she was like…like she expected it. She closed her eyes for a bit, but when she opened them it seemed everything was all laid out in her head already. Like she had a file in one of the filing cabinets at work labeled _When Jack and Lureen Get Divorced._ You’d better turn in at that café up ahead, it’s got the only decent food in town.”

Oncoming traffic forced him to wait a minute, but then Ennis turned into Rosalie’s Home-Cooking Café, Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner Served. The parking lot was half full, which was saying something on a Monday night. Ennis cut the engine, put on the brake, and got out, thinking. He went around the front of the truck where Jack was waiting for him, but he said, “Hold on,” when Jack turned to go inside. 

“What?” Jack asked. 

“Wanted to say something.” He checked around, but there wasn’t anything or anybody in the lot except them and some crows pecking in front of the dumpster. “If you hadn’t done what you did, if you hadn’t told Lureen you needed to get out, and then said the same to me, then you and me…. We never would’ve happened this way. I’d be up in Wyoming living my half-assed life, and you’d be here in Texas living a life you didn’t want. Instead…here we are. Good came out of what you did. The rest of it, nobody knows, but I do know about the good.”

Jack turned so he was facing Ennis full-on. “Good?”

Ennis knew what he was asking: all the things that were hanging in the air between them, cause they hadn’t had fuckall time to do anything about them. “Yeah, real good.” 

Jack looked at him like he was testing the truth of Ennis’s words, and then he nodded. 

After finding his way to Childress, after stepping foot in the Johnson Funeral Home filled with people who knew Jack, after goddamn shaking the hand of Randall Malone, going into a restaurant with Jack wasn’t hard, even though the only place to sit was in a section packed with other folks eating. Ennis kept his eyes open, though. Jack was mainly quiet, and Ennis understood that, cause it’d been a hell of a day for sure. Once their order was taken, Jack smiled down to the table like he was too tired to lift his head. Then he said that the National League was going to show the American League what baseball was really all about once the playoffs started. 

Ennis had no quarrel with talking baseball any time and felt comfortable arguing about the game DiMaggio had played, when it was something they’d sparred over the last twenty years. This year, he liked the Tigers, and Jack had to admit that his Cardinals weren’t going anywhere, but he figured the Mets might be the cream of the crop. The waitress was a baseball fan too. She served up her opinion along with the chicken fried steak they both wanted, with extra cream gravy for Ennis. 

But once they started eating the talk died down, and Ennis let it, seeing the pinched look around Jack’s eyes. When they were finished and they’d each paid at the front register, Jack offered to drive back to the motel. Ennis told him he wasn’t having any worn-out son-of-a-gun behind the wheel when he was in the truck. Jack should sit back and let him take care of business.

“Okay,” Jack said, without pushing. 

Ennis drove west straight into the setting sun, with his hat pulled down low to shield his eyes. It was the worst time of the day for seeing where you were going, but he managed. Jack flipped down the visor and put his hand up for shade some of the time. They pulled into the Day’s Inn parking lot around eight, as the sun was disappearing behind the buildings. 

*****

They’d somehow each forgotten that it was Monday, a regular day for other people. When Jack flipped on the TV and found the Monday night baseball game of the week, it was a surprise. To Ennis, it was a relief too, cause he was afraid Jack might want to talk seriously when he was too worn out to find words he knew he’d need. Instead, they each stripped down to their boxers and got onto the bed after Jack pulled down the bedspread and sheet. They propped up the pillows, doubled them over so they could be comfortable, and joined the Phillies and the Padres in progress. After a while, Ennis moved his foot over to touch Jack’s. 

Jack looked down at them together. “Ain’t that your hurt foot? No, it’s your right one.” 

“Yeah. My ankle.”

Jack sat up and inspected it. “Looks like it’s swelling up. You want some ice?”

“Nah, I’m okay.”

Jack lay back down. He moved his pillow closer and reached to take Ennis’s hand. Ennis didn’t like that much any other time, but like this, them together behind a closed bedroom door, it was okay. It wasn’t something he would have allowed in their old days. He wrapped his fingers round Jack’s, pulled their joined hands up to his lips, and kissed a couple of Jack’s knuckles. 

“Always did like your hands,” he murmured. 

Through the fourth and fifth innings they stayed side by side with their hands together, the lengths of their arms pressed together too. It felt good, felt necessary, this quiet except for the announcers giving the play-by-play, and him and Jack on the bed watching the game. Childress outside the motel seemed far away, the way it should be. Ennis hoped that Jack wasn’t thinking on anything at all. 

When the commercial before the bottom of the sixth inning came on, Ennis tugged his hand away. “Want a backscratch?”

Jack groaned and wriggled against the sheet like a kid, or maybe some tongue-hanging-out dog. “Hell, yes.”

“Then roll over, Rover.” 

“Fuck you,” Jack said, but he said it with a smile and rolled over. 

Why Jack’s back was so itchy, Ennis didn’t know, but this was something he liked doing and Jack liked getting, though they didn’t take the time too often. He rolled over too, went up on his elbow, and started out up at the top, along his fella’s shoulders, with Jack laying flat on his stomach, the pillow scrunched up and half on top of his dark hair. 

“There. Right there….now up a little. Over. No, the other way. That’s it…. Give it more nail. Harder.”

Ennis watched his fingers leave red marks on Jack’s skin, but Jack was oohing and aahing. He knew he wasn’t doing any harm. More like a whole lot of good. 

“Down some, over to the left…. Oh, that feels fine.”

Ennis chuckled but didn’t let his hand stop moving. “Anybody listening in would think something else was going on.” 

“Nothing’s as good as that something else, but this isn’t bad. You should let me do you sometime.”

“Maybe. Not now. You lay still and let me keep going.” 

“I’m not moving.” 

But the ballgame had come back on, and they both wanted to watch. Jack shuffled around until he was laying crosswise on the mattress, on his side facing the TV, and Ennis sat up straight and scooted down so he could reach Jack and keep track of the Phillies at the same time. Like somebody mapping new land, he made a circuit of Jack’s back, up, down, right, left, scratching hard, soothing soft, letting Jack’s reactions tell him how he was doing, sometimes by the lift of a shoulder or his ass flexing. Ennis didn’t go past the waistband of his undershorts, cause this was backscratching, not the other thing. One thing he did like doing at other times, not now, was taking Jack’s asscheeks in his palms and smoothing his hands all over them. The touch of skin right now, down Jack’s spine and across his waist and everywhere else Ennis could reach, that was fine too. 

“Keep going?” he asked.

“Mmmmm.” 

Nothing exciting happened as the sixth inning came to a quick end, only easy pop-ups and ground-outs. Another commercial came on, and then the seventh inning started, but he didn’t stop, cause this was nice, doing this for Jack. Ennis’s hands went slower, got lighter, and Jack stopped making his sounds. But Ennis knew he wasn’t asleep, cause sometimes he’d sigh. Good sighs, Ennis hoped, and he leaned over to catch a glimpse of Jack’s face every now and then. Jack’s eyes were aimed at the game, but he didn’t even blink when Mike Schmidt hit a home run. 

Ennis switched to fingertips instead of fingernails, and he used the flat of his hand to make big circles. He traced his way up Jack’s backbone and watched a shiver work across the soft skin of shoulders. A man’s shoulders. God almighty, he’d been checking out men and their shoulders for years, hadn’t he? Hadn’t ever found ones like Jack’s, though, so fucking strong. They knew how to bear years of L.D. putting him down, and years of living with Lureen, and years of trips to Wyoming, over and over. 

Now him and Jack, they were trying to give each other years, but they’d only got up to months. 

Without thinking on it, Ennis gave in to how he was feeling and leaned over. He kissed the top of Jack’s arm, let his lips linger there, and watched as a slow smile came over his man’s handsome face. 

“You had enough scratching now?” he asked, not loud at all.

Jack reached for where the remote was laying on the edge of the bed, and he cut the TV sound off. He rolled over until he was looking up into Ennis’s eyes. 

“You know what?” he asked, his words just as soft. 

“What?” Ennis swung his legs behind him until he was straightened, on his belly, hiked up on his elbows over Jack, with their faces real close. 

“I’ve been thinking of my trip to San Antonio. And I realized…. I didn’t bring the KY with me.” 

Ennis searched the blue eyes, not understanding it all, but hearing what Jack mainly meant. “I think that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah. Me too. I didn’t even know it until now. It means that I…. Ennis, about last week….”

“Shhhhh.” Ennis put a finger against Jack’s lips, where the moustache was rough against his fingerpad. “Let’s not, not now. Later.” 

Jack stared up at him, not blinking, as if he was trying to draw all of Ennis into him with his eyes alone. “All right,” he whispered. Then he reached up with arms around Ennis’s neck and pulled him down. “Come here.” 

Ennis let himself be kissed, kissed by his Jack, who he’d hurt real bad going years back, and who he feared he would hurt again going years forward. His Jack, the best man he knew, the only one he’d ever wanted to touch, to kiss, to be with, but still the same man who’d hurt him real bad, him and all he’d told the goddamned coach. It was hard to bear, that and all the other ways they weren’t seeing eye to eye, but it was impossible to consider anything else: him not with Jack, him leaving New Mexico for good, Jack being with somebody else. He was going to stick, cause this was where he belonged, wasn’t it? Here in Jack’s arms in this bed, in Childress cause that was where Jack had needed him to be. 

Like they were both tired, like it’d been a long day with too much in it, Jack rolled them over until he was on top, and Ennis made sure their lips didn’t get separated. This was…like Jack had said, it was fine, fucking fine to be here and not somewhere else, to know that he’d changed enough so that Jack spread out on top of him was a real good thing, and not something to be feared or given only cause he knew Jack wanted it, cause he was a man too, but Ennis was a man and he liked this, wanted it, wanted Jack to…. 

“Ennis,” Jack whispered. 

He felt Jack’s fingers go through his hair, his thinning hair that Jack seemed to like. Ennis opened his eyes and smiled up at him.

Jack groaned, and Ennis hadn’t seen sunrises or stars as good as the look on his face. 

“I love seeing you like this,” Jack said. “It’s like a dream, like our first years back together after I found you again, when I’d lay next to Lureen and think of you, how you’d be like this, just like this….”

Jack took his mouth again, still gentle but somehow needing at the same time. Ennis stretched under him so he could know their whole selves pressing from chests, to bellies, to dicks in shorts, and down even to his aching ankle, that he lifted and wrapped around Jack’s legs to keep him right where he was.

He rubbed his palms all over his man’s shoulders and took in the air in Jack’s mouth, and then he trailed his fingers down the length of his spine. “Gotcha,” he breathed against the lips on his, when his hands settled wide over Jack’s asscheeks and stayed there. 

Jack thrust against him, riding him a time or two or three before slowing, though Ennis didn’t want him to. Jack’s dick against his, he remembered when they’d done it like that, dick against dick when Jack’d come back from seeing Lureen, but Ennis wanted….

He groped toward the nightstand but couldn’t reach that far. He sucked on Jack’s tongue for a while before he managed to separate their mouths and say, “KY’s over there. Let’s use it.” 

Jack sat up and got it, tossed it toward him, and then skimmed out of his shorts. Ennis caught the tube and did the same in a hurry, cause Jack was pushing him back, knee-walking over and finally straddling his waist. Ennis’s mouth flooded at the sight of that dick pointed straight at him, but he squirted the stuff directly onto it from the tube. 

It was hard to get enough air into his lungs. He was breathing heavy for all the right reasons, and so was Jack as they worked together to get Ennis’s legs up over his shoulders, with his butt angled right, and then the slow, smooth slide of Jack inside him. 

It hurt too, being stretched this way. Every time they did it, he thought of how he’d pushed into Jack so hard and rough their first time, before it got easy for him. Jack’s hand now was flat on his stomach, and he was saying, “It’s all right, it’s all right.” Soon enough it was. 

All right for him to push onto Jack’s dick, and all right for Jack to start to pump into him, and all right for Ennis’s hand to go down to himself and make sure he followed Jack, didn’t lose sight of him and always found him the way he’d been found. There was nothing in God’s green earth like sliding his foreskin back and forth over his weeping dick while Jack Twist’s dick pounded into his ass, all while watching Jack’s face, catching his eyes and not letting them go, following the way his lips parted, and how he breathed, and how his forehead creased, and then his tongue came out and they were damned close….

“Here, Ennis, here, take it!”

…Jack sent warmth into him, three thrusts, four, one last dry one, and then Ennis had to gasp as suddenly the dick was gone, leaving him to close in on himself. But in a blink Jack was pushing his legs down to the bed and was between them, his mouth on Ennis’s dick. That was it, that was everything he needed, and he drove into Jack and gave it all up to him. 

The last firework in his dick had just spent itself when Jack crawled up his body and collapsed on his chest. Ennis—automatic, ordinary, natural, wanted-more-than-he-wanted-anything—put his arms around his man. 

After a long time—the Phillies won the game, four to two—Ennis breathed into Jack’s hair and said, “Somebody should turn off that TV.” 

“Okay,” came Jack’s muffled voice, but he didn’t move. Ennis had this weight on him, so he couldn’t really move either, could he?

A couple minutes later, Jack said, “We should clean up.”

Yeah, cause who knew what the maids would find tomorrow if they didn’t? But there were better things to do, like stay where he was with Jack and let sleep fall on him.

With Jack. 

With Jack. 

*****


	14. Looks Like a Duck

Jack dragged himself out of the depths of sleep, slammed against his misery, and then wished he could crawl back to where he didn't feel anything. Oh, God, he didn’t want to leave. That fourteen hour drive back to Texas, every mile a separate, stinging retreat, knowing it would be months before they’d be together again…. He could feel Ennis on his skin, smell his spunk in his moustache, hear his solid breathing: he didn’t need to open his eyes to know he was there in the tent, propped up on an elbow, watching. Today was the last day, this waking their last waking, and god knew he didn’t want to drive away.

He groaned and rolled onto his side, away from what he’d been needing and mainly not getting for too many years…and then he came completely awake.

“What’s the matter, bud?”

Ennis’s voice, his sleep-thick, thirty-nine-year-old voice. In a motel room in Childress. Nobody was driving away alone today. Jack shuddered at the memory of what had been, in disbelief that he’d lived through those impossible, torturing years.

A soothing hand rubbed the curve of his shoulder. “Bad dream?”

He tried to chase the past away. That was the problem with memories though. They couldn’t be separated from the rest of your life. Everything flowed forward from everything that had already happened. “Uh-huh.”

“Wanna tell me?”

“Nah. It’s okay.”

Ennis shifted until he was pressed up against Jack’s back, one of their regular ways of being together, him behind Ennis or Ennis behind him, and it was like a familiar hand was being offered, friendly, ready to give the boost he needed. That, he could take. Jack curved himself, pushing his butt out and wrapping Ennis’s arm around his middle until they were fit together like two kittens. How many times had they done this? Not nearly as many as might have been if they’d been able to be true and open with each other - - and with themselves - - long years before.

Breath drifted against his neck, and the dream-dread in his gut melted away as naked skin against naked skin worked its magic. A glow of morning sunlight escaped from the folds of the drape to paint the carpet, and he contemplated that for a while.

Thank God. Not that he believed, but here they were, so thank God anyway.

He was thinking of either floating back to sleep or getting up to take a piss when the hold on him tightened. “You really think that….” Ennis’s voice trailed away.

It was Ennis sounding uncertain that caught him. “Think what?” he asked, stroking the fingers under his, telling that it was okay to go on.

“That…that it’s not you I want, just some man.” It came out in a rush. “Just some dick. You really think that?”

After having his worst nightmare taken away by the man who’d caused it in the first place, of course he wanted to say, _No, I don’t think that._ But back when they’d been hollering at each other in the pasture, it had seemed possible.

“I don’t know. Not really. But it’s crossed my mind, especially lately.”

“Shit.” A whisper. Outside he heard a door slam and a motor cough to life. Behind him, Ennis was silent and still.

“You’ve only ever been with me,” Jack said.

“You mean you’re the only guy I’ve been with.”

“Am I wrong?”

“You know you ain’t. It’s just been you.”

“Well, then.” A woman’s voice speaking Spanish called from down in the parking lot, and another, younger voice answered. Jack heard their footsteps join and then fade away.

“Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want anybody else.”

“Maybe because you don’t know anybody else. You could, maybe. Want somebody instead of me.”

“You trying to get rid of me?”

“Hell, no. But…I don’t want you to wake up some day and….you know.” Ennis deciding he wanted to leave after Jack’d had him like this for months, maybe years…. He couldn’t imagine how he’d live through that day.

But that arm was still firm around him. “Just cause you screwed around,” Ennis said, “doesn’t mean I’ve got to. You don’t have a hold on seeing things right because of it.”

“It’s not that. It’s….” It was all mixed up: his anger, Ennis’s fears holding him back from living the way he’d been made, Jack’s earliest memories of his daddy saying _you good for nothing boy._ “Shit, I don’t know.” Suddenly, sharp teeth were biting the back of his neck. “Hey!”

And now kisses in the same spot, definite, precise. “You are dumber than a post. What do I have to do to show you how I feel on you? Maybe leave the only state I ever lived in, leave my girls, find a new job in some town I don’t know, come to you dragging my ass on the ground with my hat in my hand? Would that maybe do it?”

Damn, yes. That night wasn’t just some sad, impossible dream. It had really happened. Ennis standing before him at the McCormack dealership, past all reasoning, past all hope, past all his understanding of the man. And then he had to add in what had happened at the Johnson Funeral Home two days before. For anybody but a blind man - - and anger could make a man that way - - Ennis had shown him his truth.

Even so…the dark, doubting, San Antonio days had really happened too, and the weeks before them. They needed a truth that stuck, that worked for both of them. Jack had to make damn certain on all counts right now.

It wasn’t all that easy to turn over so they were facing each other, two nose-lengths apart on the same pillow. Ennis’s eyes were black sparks in the dimness. Jack reached to run fingertips along stubble and for an instant was touching Lureen’s soft skin instead, not wanting it, wanting what he had right now with every part of him.

“Are you sure?” he asked, forcing himself to talk when he wanted to choke back the words as soon as they got out of his mouth. “Are you really sure? Because if you’re not, if maybe this isn't right for you somehow, now’s the time to say. Before we go any farther.”

Ennis looked stricken, like a little boy who’d just been told his dog would be shot. That's how Jack felt, to even be asking. Ennis clutched at Jack’s waist. “You said you were coming home.”

It was what he really wanted. He’d been gone too long. “Yeah, I did. I am.”

“Then I don’t have anything to talk about. I’m set.”

“Ennis…. It's not that easy. We've got things we need to fix. Those were some angry words we threw at each other last week. I could've murdered you. Could still murder you, how you made me fucking mad with all your shit.”

“So what? Are you saying I need to watch my back when you’re in the room?”

“You might want to lock up the shotgun.”

Ennis grunted. “If that’s what you’ll be using, I've got no fears. What about how I’m fucking mad at you, huh? You make me mad enough sometimes I think smoke’s coming out of my ears. Maybe I’ll catch you when you’re on the phone with…with Morgan, sneak up behind you cause you never even know I'm there when you’re talking on that thing.”

“You've got phone problems.”

“You've got them too, different kinds, you and your mouth always open. But that doesn't mean I ain’t sure about us. Sounds like you’re the one who’s - - ”

No way was he going to let Ennis finish that thought, because it wasn’t so. Jack stopped him by hitching forward and pressing a finger against his mouth. “No. No. You know that's not.... We’ve got a year’s lease on our place. No way I want to break it.”

Ennis pulled his hand away but kissed his palm, relief in the touch of his lips. “Yeah,” he said. “We need to keep it. That way you've got someplace to bring Bobby.”

“Sure. And it’s best if two paychecks cover that rent, don’t you think?”

“Tough for just one of us to do it.”

“Then I guess it’s settled.”

“Damn right it’s settled. You come on home with me. We’ll work things out.”

Work things out…. Jack searched Ennis’s eyes. “Let’s do that. Okay.”

They’d come far, a lot farther than Ennis had driven to get here. He could get used to Ennis being sure, wanting to fix things with him. Jack lay there as the shaft of light shining in on them moved across the floor and then over onto the bed, watching Ennis as Ennis watched him, as he stroked his thumb over and over Ennis’s cheek. His hair like honey, the way his hairline was moving back a little each year, the edge of his ear peeking out - - he had fine ears for a man, delicate even - - the line of his nose, his lips. Normal, natural, to be here in quiet morning moments together, moments that Ennis generally didn’t give them, as determined as he was to be up and working at the crack of first light.

But after a while he couldn’t ignore how he had to go, so Jack patted Ennis’s arm and got out of bed. Scratching the back of his neck, he went into the bathroom and braced himself with a stiff arm against the wall. He yawned and watched the night’s piss go down the toilet. When Jack moved to the sink that was situated outside the bathroom, Ennis went in and closed the door.

Jack looked at himself in the mirror and ran his hand over his face. He got his shaving cream out of his kit and put it on his shaving brush. He lathered up, being careful over his sore cheek, and he couldn’t help but think more about things.

“Ennis?”

“Yeah?” His voice was muffled through the door.

“You think I push you too much?”

“Hell, yes.”

“Maybe a little, but - - ”

“Not a little from where I’m standing.”

“I thought you were sitting.”

“You’re a joker this morning.”

“If I didn’t push, I’d be lucky to see you at all.” He finished shaving his neck, rinsed his razor, and moved up.

“Huh.”

“That’s the whole point, isn't it? Of us living together? That we get to see each other?”

“You ain’t been helping with all this traveling you've been doing.”

“I’ll grant you that, but….” He paused while he stroked around his moustache; it needed trimming. “I can’t do much about that when it’s been the job and what happened to Lureen. But when I’m home - - ”

“Jesus Christ, can’t a man take a crap in peace?”

“Nope, I’ve got you right where I want you.” He could hear the snorted laughter. “You’ve got to meet me halfway at home.”

“I’m trying to run a business, Jack.”

“I know. But you’ve got a life too. And my life is bound up in yours, isn't it?” He started on the other side of his face and hoped like hell that Ennis was hearing him clearly, that he was saying the right words in the right way at the right time. “If I don’t have you, then I've got to ask myself what I’m doing in New Mexico, see? And lately I've been feeling like I don’t have you. That’s why…probably why you think I push so much.”

There was silence from the other side of the door while Jack finished shaving and ran the water to splash on his face. He was reaching for the scissors he kept for moustache trimming when he heard “Hold on” and the sound of the toilet flushing. Then Ennis came out and was next to him, propping a hip on the edge of the counter and looking at him squarely.

“I thought we said we were settled.”

“Yep, we did. We are.”

“Then why are we talking about this stuff?”

Jack shrugged.

“When you said that I couldn’t leave cause I ain’t arrived yet, that’s what you mean when you say you don’t have me.”

Jack leaned in to look at himself and snipped some stray hairs. He let his sight rest on Ennis in the mirror. “Yep, that’s it.”

Ennis bit his lip and turned away, toward where the sheet was dragging off the bed in the middle of the room. “It ain’t so. I’m as here as I can be. You’re mixing up me trying to run the business with that.”

“And a bunch of other things are in there too. You think we can find some middle ground?”

“Where you ain’t pushing me all the time? I ain’t your kid, you know.”

“I don’t do it all the time.”

That brought Ennis’s eyes back to his in the mirror. “Sure you do. You’re doing it right now.”

“I push just when you need it.”

“Jack….”

“Ennis….”

“Middle ground, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m here already.”

“Maybe you can get closer.”

“I would, except you’re like to stab me with that damn scissors. When you gonna shave off that moustache, anyway?”

“What’s the matter, don’t you like it?”

“I didn’t say that. I like it fine.” Ennis pushed off the counter and went over to where his suitcase was on the far side of the room. He started rooting around in it.

Jack spent another minute clipping so he wouldn’t be straining soup, and through the mirror he watched Ennis fussing, probably thinking things over. Time was, things between them hadn’t ever been settled. The way Ennis was goddamned stubborn….

Jack stopped himself. Yeah, he was stubborn, but the same as Jack had changed, Ennis had too. He’d made that trip down from Wyoming truly with hat in hand, more pride swallowed in that moment he’d asked Jack to go out with him on Saturday - - because he understood Fridays was taken by Gary - - than there was snow in the Tetons in February. He wasn’t as stubborn as he used to be. It seemed to Jack that he needed to remind himself of that when he was losing patience.

He was putting the scissors back in the case when Ennis came next to him, elbowing him to the side.

“Hey!”

“You’re through here now, ain’t you? There’s two of us who have to shave, you know.”

Jack shoved back. “Shithead,” he said. “I've got to brush my teeth.”

Ennis reached past him and fished out Jack’s toothbrush. Then he pulled his own toothpaste out of the bag he was using and put it on. “Here.”

Jack didn’t really like the taste of Colgate Original, the good old, stand-by, reliable toothpaste, but he wasn’t going to complain. He stood there and brushed, grinning through the froth at Ennis doing the same, though Ennis scowled at him, trying to pretend he was serious.

_Knock! Knock! Knock!_

“Housekeeping,” came a heavily accented voice, and then the sound of a key being put in the door lock.

“No!” they both hollered at the same time. The mirror was splattered with foamy spit.

“Sí,” the woman said right away. “I come later.”

Jack stayed still over the sink until he was sure she was gone. Then he rinsed out his mouth. He forced a laugh and shook his head. “Holy shit. How’d we sleep so late that the maid is busting in on us?”

Ennis finished spitting in the sink and came up looking like a squirrel caught out on the road, ready to jump in the next second. He managed to say, “She’d have a fright if she did.” He nodded down at Jack’s dick, because neither one of them had put on any clothes.

Jack swiped at Ennis’s equipment and missed deliberately, though Ennis sort of hopped back, protecting the family jewels.

“Hey, now,” Ennis said. “Don’t make us both sorry.” 

He wanted to say something funny, like _a one-way bus ticket to_ …somewhere, but he couldn’t think of where that might be, only stuff like _heaven_ coming to mind, and he didn’t think Ennis would get what he meant. Wasn’t that funny anyway, even if it did sort of catch how he was feeling, that almost anything was possible if they could talk the way they’d been doing. Jack snorted and went into the bathroom, thinking that almost anything was possible if they could talk to each other the way they’d been doing. He leaned into the tub to start the shower, amazed that Ennis hadn’t hit the roof, or started packing, or maybe stormed out to strangle the maid with his bare hands, once he’d put jeans on. Jack stepped under the water, amused at the thought of the maid screaming with Ennis in full chase.

Jack’s mother had sometimes lectured him about how hot water for showers was one of the great gifts of living in modern times, as if life in Lightning Flat really could be called living in the twentieth century. But he’d heard her, and more often than he liked to admit, when he stepped into the warm spray he thought of his mama saying that. He did now too, along with his next normal thoughts, which were how some shrinks said gay men had unnatural attachments to their mothers, and how maybe it was really weird that he was naked, soaping up his armpits, and thinking of the woman who’d given birth to him. He hadn’t seen her in a year and a half, almost. Maybe someday, some good day, he’d introduce Ennis to his mother, and it would work out, her smiling up at him, Ennis looking down on her while holding his hat close, that way he did. A man could dream, couldn’t he?

“Hey, Jack?”

Through the thin plastic of the shower curtain, Jack could make out the shadow of a man. “Yeah?” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the water pouring on him, even though Ennis wasn’t but a few feet away.

“I guess that Randall…. I guess you told him things too.”

Jack froze where he was, with his hands spread wide on his soapy chest. Why did Ennis want to know….

“Uh….” He unstuck his tongue to answer. “Not much,” he said, cautiously.

“How much is that?”

Hardly believing that Ennis was still asking, Jack reached out to turn the knob and the noisy spray got a lot quieter. His mind raced all over the place. What did this…. But he had to answer. “He knew where I went when I saw you. He knew we went way back. I never told him how I felt about you, but I didn’t have to. He figured it out.”

“Not like how you blabbed to the coach.”

Jack worked on keeping his thoughts calm. This was just the way Ennis was, real tender in this area. Maybe he never would understand the state that Jack had been in, what had driven him to those ranting, crazy nights when it’d been all about the man not in the bed with him and Gary.

Jack looked at where the shower curtain had sealed itself against the tile wall. He reached out and peeled it away, enough to stick his head out. Ennis was standing next to the towel rack, bare-naked because of the look in his eyes, not because all his skin showed.

“Ennis, I’m sorry.”

Ennis looked away toward the toilet. His hands moved, like he wanted to do something with them but didn’t know what, not having pockets he could make them disappear into.

“If I could take back what I told Gary, I would.”

“It bothers me, Jack.”

“I know.”

“It bothers me that you've been with all those other men.”

“I know.”

“I don’t even know when you did it. Took up with them, when I thought it was just you and me.”

Ennis looked back toward him and held his gaze for long seconds as the water gently sprayed on Jack’s arm and ran down his leg. There was something in Ennis’s eyes, more than pain, more than anger, something open and asking that Jack hadn’t seen there before. Ennis wasn’t finished talking like every other time they’d come close to this. Godalmighty, he wasn’t finished. There were more words not yet spoken but almost there, almost there, and a wild hope sprang up in Jack, right next to real fear. More words might bring Ennis out of hiding, might open up the space between them to where it was big enough for both of them to live there, facing each other honestly…. Or those words might ruin everything, especially this newfound thing that had come up between them these past days and this morning. What he’d wanted all these months, to somehow explain, to make sense of it all, to share with Ennis what he’d been driven to do, and to take away the lies…. Now he feared it as much as he wanted it.

“When did you do it, Jack? Huh? For how long?”

A shock ran through him that tingled on his face, following the tracks of long ago tears. _Ciudad Juarez, Mexico…._ He closed his eyes, remembering how bad it had been, and then he opened his eyes, seeing how good it could be if they could get through this. Ennis was there, looking at him, naked and asking. 

Trembling, Jack put out his wet hand. Ennis took it and let himself be pulled into the shower.

Jack needed them close, but Ennis wasn’t having it. He grabbed both Jack’s shoulders and kept his arms stiff and straight, holding Jack from him at a distance that was all about Ennis’s frown and his fears. It was like the very old days between them.

“No,” Jack whispered. “Please come here.” He was desperate to have their fronts together, and after a few seconds of resistance Ennis gave in. Under the spray of water, Ennis’s arms came around him, seeking comfort at the same time as claiming territory, his fingers spread like they wanted to cover as much skin as possible. Jack held on tight, but he couldn’t hold tightly enough to stop a man from running if that’s what he wanted to do. Jesus, now was the time.

“From when I found you in Riverton,” he said, his lips close to Ennis’s ear, “to when you got divorced, it was just you and me. That's what I always wanted, just you and me. Then…that time…that time when you had the girls and you fucking sent me away, that was the first time I went to Mexico.”

Almost nine years and no man had touched him but Ennis. Then the man with the dark eyes from the dark alley had touched him on that darkest night: the first of many surrenders, the first of many defenses.

Ennis moved against him, a stuttering, staggering move, but then he was still, as if Ennis braced himself against pain. 

Jack kept going as he let the images rise. “After that I went down there maybe only once a year, because it was a long way and expensive, and it took time I didn’t have away from my trips north to see you. But one year, 1978,” he paused, tasted acid. “I went three times because I couldn’t stand it anymore. That was a bad year.”

Fucking bad year. He’d felt himself sliding down and, no matter how he’d grabbed for a handhold, nothing had been there.

“It…it was easy to find somebody. There are places by the border where the cops look the other way, but I mainly stayed with the one street I knew. That was safer. Last time I made the trip was 1980.”

So strange, what he was confessing but not saying: what had driven him to do it, the helpless fury that had boiled right next to the need, and slowly giving up hope. On the second trip, he’d come across a nameless man he always tried to find again, a man who never asked questions and seemed to know his way around Jack’s body. He gave enough in those minutes of sweat and frenzied panting that Jack forgot everything else and was able to cry out for his own self, in the body’s release and pleasure. It was only in the minutes after that he remembered.

So strange, that he knew he was hurting Ennis, making the truth come alive, when before it had been a ghost between them. _I know what’s in Mexico for boys like you._ But Ennis hadn’t known, hadn’t known anything about it: the wild fuck-you flung at his whole life as he drove south, the satisfaction that never lasted long enough, the shame of it. Now Ennis was taking it in, letting it be said, a gift that Jack had yearned for.

So strange, that there’d been a time when in his frustration and rage he’d dreamed about using these words as weapons. _Take this, you coward, you motherfucker, and see how it hurts, only half as much as you’ve hurt me. I’ve fucked other men, been fucked by them, bigger than you, better than you._ But now everything was turned around.

“Once, everything went wrong. I got drunk - - ”

But Ennis stirred against him at last. “It was always wrong,” he whispered. “No more, that’s enough. Mexico. I hate that place.”

Ennis drew back so they weren’t touching at all, and Jack let him. He looked like he’d been working all day at the worst kind of backbreaking work that had cracked the strength of his arms, and Jack hated himself for doing that to him. Except, Ennis had done it to him first.

“The last time…” Ennis lifted his eyes to meet Jack’s gaze. His voice was husky. “You said the last time was four years ago. I guess I know why. That’s when…. Your fancy foreman.”

Jack smiled a sad smile and pushed a strand of Ennis’s wet hair back where it belonged. “You’re my fancy foreman now.”

“Jack….” Like he was exhausted, or maybe because he couldn’t bear to look at Jack right then, Ennis pitched forward, his forehead coming to rest on Jack’s shoulder. “Shit. You were with him that long?”

Jack rested his hands on slick upper arms, as much touching as he could get with Ennis holding so much of himself apart. “Three and a half years.”

Ennis made a sound that Bobby might have made years before, a child not understanding the world.

“He….” Was it crueler to go forward or crueler to stop? He couldn’t believe this, all that Ennis had taken in already. “Me and Randy - - ” Ennis flinched like a dog seeing the raised strap about to come down, but then he slid his hands up Jack’s sides, gripping hard. Jack swallowed and buried his face in Ennis’s hair. He feared that he’d say too much, push to the breaking point.

“Him and me could’ve been together a lot longer, but it took me a long time before I could bring myself to…. We used to go fishing. I laughed to god and hell when that was where he wanted to go, because his boss has a cabin out at Lake Kemp.

“Those three and a half years, they felt like ten years. They felt like forever, because I needed you. I needed you, Ennis. But you and me were on the long road to nowhere. Randy was all about having a good time, and I took what I could get, weekends on the lake.”

Jack rubbed the muscles of Ennis’s arms. He could feel them straining.

“You remember what I said about Randy back in Amarillo, don’t you?” he asked. “He was there when nobody else was, including you, but he was second best and always would be. I didn’t lo - - ”

_Love you_ came a whisper, barely there, and Jack wasn’t sure he’d heard it. He stopped talking.

Ennis’s head came up. He grabbed Jack’s face with both hands. “I love you,” he said fiercely, his eyes stabbing into Jack’s. “I love you so goddamned fucking much you make me crazy. I love you so that thinking of you with other guys makes me want to punch something, or a lot worse, or die myself cause there ain’t no sense to the world.”

Ennis took in a huge breath, as if these words alone, pulled up from so far deep down, from his fiery, hidden center, had demanded all his will and his energy. But Ennis went on, clutching him, holding him hard, not looking away, and Jack couldn’t move.

“Jack, I.... Jack.... Damn it, you’ve got to know. I can’t think of days without you, ever, cause those days are gone, all those bad days when I wasn’t even half alive cause I wouldn’t let us be together. Jesus Christ, I love you, you goddamned asshole. You hear me? This is how I feel on you, this is how!”

Ennis lunged for him, driving Jack back against the tile and taking his lips with his full man’s strength, his tongue diving deep, his fingers dropping down to Jack’s hips and digging in cruelly, his dick pounding against his thigh, bruising. And after the first moment of shock, something inside Jack began to sing, because: This was Ennis’s breaking point, not too far at all but bringing them to where they’d always been. He moved to take everything Ennis gave - - every kiss, every hurt, every pinch of skin that pained, every flaming touch - - as he’d taken in every word that Ennis had just said, every word his shy boy with the quiet brown eyes had ever said from the day they’d met.

He had to pull his lips away to say it, but he’d drop down dead if he didn’t get it out. “Ennis,” he gasped. “I love you!” He pushed back and back until the water fell on both of them, into their eyes, but he didn’t care. He kissed Ennis the way he always wanted to kiss this impossible, damnfool man, with everything he had in him, with his hands clutching and needful, with his dick solid like the earth, inevitable like the wind, and with his heart thundering out of control.

Jack thrust up against Ennis because that’s the way it was with them. He gripped Ennis so he wouldn’t ever leave. He let the water run between them down their faces and opened himself to the taste of joy. “You came to Childress for me,” he panted, this earthbound man lifting him up into wild rushing flight. _Twenty-one years, I know you and you know me…._

“I’m always gonna come for you,” Ennis growled, running his hands over and over through Jack’s hair, planting kisses on his nose, his cheeks, along his jaw, and reaching down to grab his ass. Jack groaned, because there never had been anybody….

_Nobody’s ever touched me like you, even after all these years it’s the same between us, because what happened up on Brokeback took hold of us, and love’s what it is. That’s why nobody else ever was any good for me. They’re not you. You’ve got what I want, you shithead…._

None of that came out of his mouth except “shithead,” but that was okay, because they understood each other. Like how all the mountains were connected by their granite bones under the surface of the earth, before they rose up in such majesty that a man couldn’t catch his breath for the beauty of it, that’s how him and Ennis were.

Jack clamped his hands on Ennis’s ass and jerked against him as they came together from a new angle. New purpose and a thrill raced through him, his dick straining because there was Ennis’s dick right up against him, and he couldn’t get any harder. He gasped out “I love you” again, and watched it wash over Ennis, watched him take it in and be made more, be made better because of it. He was glad he’d said it and wished he’d said it before, but since they’d moved to New Mexico, he hadn’t. There’d been a holding back all these months, Ennis not there but maybe Jack hadn’t been there either, not letting go of Gary the way he should’ve, or mired in the past, fearful of what was going to happen when _Mexico_ or _Randall_ came to life but knowing they had to someday. Either way neither one of them had said it even though he felt it, damnit, he felt it and meant it.

“Look at me,” he begged. Ennis did, full on, not the man anymore who couldn’t face what they were doing. Now those eyes latched onto him and seemed to glow as they heaved against each other.

“Never gonna give you cause to go back to them, never gonna let you go,” Ennis said as his lips thinned and his mouth pulled back, as Jack knew he would blow any second but still he got out, “even if they’re better than me. Oh, Christ, Jack….”

Wet heat splashed on him three, four times, and then he pushed Ennis unresisting against the side wall, drove against him, croaked, “Here,” and shuddered until he was still.

He couldn’t stand on his own, no way. He sagged to let Ennis take his weight, slipping down some to where he stayed pressed. When Ennis’s arms came around to hold him, he felt them and a lot more.

“I can’t change what’s past,” he said into the slash of a collarbone, remembering Gary and the convention, so damn grateful that it hadn’t happened, that he hadn’t let it happen. “But I told you back in Amarillo there wouldn’t be anybody else but you if we got together, and I mean that. I really mean that.”

“Jack Fucking Twist,” Ennis said quietly, and Jack felt lips nuzzling against him. He lifted his head and with a shove against the tile got himself upright, enough so that his mouth was a couple of inches away from where he found a home for a long, heart-full minute.

_Kissing Ennis and being kissed back, man lips a match for him, what he’d always wanted, and now without his dick driving him a chance to show what he meant this way too, slow and with intent, with every breath he took and silent slide of tongue._

When he pulled away, he whispered, “Are you okay?” Then he said it again, because there wasn’t any need to speak that quietly.

Ennis nodded, and then, like he knew that wasn’t enough, he said, “Yeah. You sonuvabitch.”

Jack kissed him again, lips alone. He could scarcely wrap his mind around it, that finally there was the first crack in that hardest rock, what they’d never been strong enough to say before. “You asked me.”

“Dumbass me.” Ennis bit his lip and looked away. “I should’ve known that was when you did it. I can remember how I felt when you drove away, like the bottom dropped out of my stomach. Knowing for sure…it doesn’t make anything easier. Hell, Jack. No you and me since right after my divorce?”

“Damn it, Ennis, there’s been you and me all the time, since we stepped foot in Aguirre’s trailer.”

“You think so, huh? What happened to the moment you drove up and saw me, huh? Seems I’ve slipped in your eyes.”

“That’s because of the hard times you put me through. I didn’t need to sow those wild oats, you forced me into it. I don’t know….”

_I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forgive you for it._

“What?” Ennis asked.

“Nothing.” Over those last years, he’d felt like nothing, like the smallest puff of wind against Ennis’s stubbornness. He’d learned what despair tasted like, and he’d wondered how the way he felt about Ennis had sometimes risen up to be a snarling black beast. He wondered about that still, that it’d been that way at the end.

“Ain’t nothing if Jack Twist wants to say it.”

Let be, let be. He had to try and learn to let it be.

It was easy to say, because it was true. “I don’t hardly know how we got back to each other, but I’m sure as hell glad we did.”

It was clear Ennis knew there was something more, but maybe he didn’t know how to go in that direction either. Instead, after a couple of seconds he nodded. “Good thing, cause like we said, we’re settled, ain’t we?” Fingers brushed along his arm for no more than an instant, a whisper-kiss of tenderness.

Jack reached past him to turn on the trickling water until it rushed on them. “If we weren’t settled before, we sure are now. Even though you’re a pain in the ass most of the time.”

“If we’re comparing ass pains, I got to talk to you about last night. You gonna stay here until you turn into a prune?”

“A little while longer. You want me to wash your back?”

Ennis didn’t mind if he did, and Jack thought of offering to wash his hair too. But he kept that pleasure for another day, maybe another amazing morning out of time, because he knew for sure that he’d get shot down if he tried that now. He climbed out of the tub to get the shampoo from by the sink, then got back in and soaped his own head before handing it over to Ennis, who looked like some sort of golden mustang stallion caught in a rainstorm, tough and wiry in his prime, all slicked back, lean and bright.

Jack blinked through the suds running into his eyes, making them sting. Ennis hadn’t run away, had he? Even though he could have in all different ways. Not through meeting Lureen, not when they’d had to deal with the notion of Bobby coming to be with them, not through any of their fights, and not now. Jack had always thought that if there came a time when he actually got words out of his mouth about Mexico, about Randy, that there was the best chance that the whole world - - the Eagle Nest world, the only one that mattered to him - - would shake and fall down around him. That would probably leave him crushed and half-dead, because Ennis never would be able to accept things, would he?

But here his fellow was, bending over washing his legs, taking some quiet time after the … the cataclysm that’d took hold of them both, but still staying close. Jack wiped the soap away from his eyes. Nothing had been destroyed. It was like the _National Geographic_ article he’d helped Bobby read once for school, where sometimes an earthquake happened but it was good, when two parts that had been grating against each other slipped closer: they got themselves in a better position so there could be solid ground for years to come.

“You done?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

Even when it seemed the earth had moved, a man still needed to go on with getting ready for the rest of the day. As they were back in the bedroom drying themselves off with the thin white towels the motel gave them, Jack asked, “How’s your ankle?” It felt strange because it was such a normal thing to say.

Ennis sat down on the bed and held out his foot, inspecting it with one eye closed. “It’s okay. The swelling’s gone down from last night.” He looked up. “Your face looks better today.”

Jack felt where he’d been marked by Gary. “Yeah, another day or two and it’ll be gone. It wasn’t much to start with, I guess.”

“Serves you right, falling off cliffs. What’re we doing today? Do I go fancy pants or do I wear jeans?”

“You sure do look good in that suit.”

“Don’t get used to it. There ain’t much call for it on horseback.”

“And not today either, I guess.” Jack rubbed fingers against the back of his neck and faced up to what had to be done. “I need to call the Newsomes and get them to wake Bobby up, and then I need to have a talk with him. That’s number one.” He said it casually, like he had no fear in him when he was full of it. “And then….” He threw the towel next to the TV, went over to the suitcase that Ennis had borrowed, and rummaged around. “How about you and Bobby get to know each other?” His son and his lover, who happened to be a man, shaking hands. If there were ways to go along that path, he wished he knew what they were.

Jack had found the next-to-last pair of clean undershorts, put them on, and shrugged into a white Izod shirt, and Ennis was mostly dressed before Ennis said, in the tone of a man invited to his own execution, “Guess it has to be done.”

“I want Bobby to know you before we get him out to our place for a visit. So he won’t have any reason to…to fear you or have an excuse for not coming.”

Ennis let out air. “Yep, I get it, and we’re gonna do that. But the boy won’t think much of me, and I can’t blame him. I don’t know much, and I’ve never done much with my life like other people.”

Jack frowned and reluctantly stepped into his navy blue Dockers that had already done double duty on this trip. “Ennis, you’ve got no cause to compare yourself in an unfavorable light to anybody.”

Ennis showed him his back, fussing with the cuffs of his blue-striped shirt. “Get off it, Jack. I know the score.”

“Besides, you know there isn’t anybody better for me than - - ”

“I know for sure that ain’t true. I don’t have what those other guys of yours…. But it doesn’t matter, cause this is the way it is and this is the way it’s gonna stay. I’m gonna go get breakfast. What do you want me to bring back?” Ennis picked up his wallet from the nightstand and stuffed it in his back pocket.

Jack sat down and reached for his socks and shoes. He knew he had to let Ennis’s insecurities go for another day. “I’m going with you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I’m not letting you out of my sight. Maybe you’re a dream I’m having, and if I let you go now, I’ll wake up.”

“You idiot.” Ennis walked around the bed to where Jack was tying his laces. “I ain’t no dream. Nightmare, maybe.” He pushed Jack enough to rock him. “There. You think I’m real?”

“I’m not taking any chances. Come on, let’s go, I’m hungry.”

When they walked outside, the maid’s cart was only two doors down, and the TV was blasting through the open door. Ennis picked up his hat and then put it back down on his head maybe a bit firmer, settling it, but that was all. Jack led the way to where the Ram sat at the base of the stairway. He held out his hand.

“Let me drive today.”

Ennis tossed him the keys, and Jack turned the ignition under his watchful eye. Sometimes he got the feeling Ennis didn’t trust him to cross the street, much less drive.

“Donut shop’s over that way,” Ennis said as they pulled out onto the highway.

“I know, I lived here for seventeen years, remember? I don’t want donuts today. Don’t you ever get sick of them?”

“Sure, sometimes. Then how about we drive through for fast food?”

“Unless you want a sit-down breakfast, that’s about the only other choice.”

“It’s after nine already. We need to be up and doing whatever we’re gonna be doing. Let’s go to McDonald’s.”

All the fast food joints were on the east side. Jack drove through the sunshine, past shops and used car lots and signs pointing to downtown, past Aunt Susie’s Café that wouldn’t open until lunchtime, but was the place, he told Ennis, for a fine meatball sandwich. Before he got to Newsome’s Farm Equipment, he turned in to McDonald’s lot in time to catch the early rush, with two cars and a van in front of them at the drive-through.

“I need to call the car rental place when we get back,” Jack said, sitting back for the wait. “They need to know the car isn’t doing me any good stuck in my driveway.”

“They’ll have to tow it.”

“Which means I’ll need to give over the keys. Good thing for me you’re here to do the driving. My chauffeur.”

“Does that mean I get paid?”

“Sure, I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“You’re a big spender,” Ennis said, looking out the rolled-down window with his elbow propped up on the edge. “Besides, you’re the one driving right now. I suppose,” he heaved a long-suffering breath, “I suppose you expect me to get that second phone line.”

Jack put the truck in gear and moved forward one spot in line. He matched Ennis’s tone, like this was an ordinary thing for them to be talking about, when it was anything but. “Either that or put up with folks knowing we’re sharing the house.”

“Huh. It’d be best for the business if I got the extra line. Some sort of answering machine too. I wonder how much that costs.”

“I don’t have any idea. You’ll have to find out, if you’re serious about training those horses.”

“I’m serious.”

“Yeah, I’ve guessed that about you.”

Ennis threw him a glance. “As much as you are about keeping up with the coach. What the hell do you see in him, Jack?”

Jack sighed. Gary had asked him the same question about Ennis. He didn’t think this was something he could explain, his feeling of being loyal to a man who’d picked him up and set him on two feet when he’d been down in the dirt, even though he knew now he’d been crazy to ever think he could’ve made a life with Gary. It made his skin crawl to think of it. Still, they were friends, him and dickhead Gary. “He’s a good dancer?”

Ennis hunched his shoulders. “Damn. I don’t want to hear more of this. If you think I’m ever gonna play the woman with you and dance in our kitchen, you are out of your mind.”

“Did I ask that?”

“I could hear it coming.”

“No way. You probably have two left feet anyway.”

“You’ll never find out.”

“I could call Alma and ask.”

“That’ll be the day.”

Jack looked at the rearview mirror, reached out to adjust it some, and thought he’d better make one thing plain, because Ennis needed to hear this and believe it. “You don’t have to worry about Gary, you know. I don’t tell him anything about us. It was just back then.”

“You sure were one messed up fucker when you left me, Twist.”

“And who messed me up?” he was quick to ask.

“You’re holding up the line,” Ennis pointed out. “When we get up there, I want an Egg McMuffin.”

Jack moved the truck up and applied the brake. “Since I’m paying, hash browns and orange juice for you too, Skinny. Slats. Slats Del Mar.”

“Jesus.”

“Slats Del Mar who has too many horses in his field for one man to handle. Were you thinking of getting some outdoor stadium lights around the pasture at the same time you order the phone line? That way you can work to three, four o’clock in the morning.”

“Sounds good. You figure I’ll have to go to Trinidad for them, or will I find them in Raton?”

“Or maybe you can hire somebody to come work with you, though that means I’ll have to hide in the bathroom so nobody knows I’m around.”

“More like you to put up a sign.”

“Sure. Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar live here.”

Ennis was quiet while the engine idled and then the van in front of them moved away from the window. “Yeah,” he finally said. “That’s true.”

Jack reached for the gearstick. “Yeah. We do live there.”

“I know. Ain’t so bad.”

The Childress McDonald’s wasn’t ever known for quick service, and new records in the slow department were set once they ordered, but after an age they had their food. By that time, Jack could’ve eaten the flashlight in the glove box. He pulled out of the drive-through lane and went around to the side parking lot. There he parked the truck in a spot where a straggly tree would stop the Texas sun from shining on them directly.

“Okay with you if we eat right here?”

“Sure.”

Ennis opened up the bag and handed Jack his part, and Jack put the carrier with the OJ and the two coffees he’d got on the seat between them. He saw Ennis glancing around at the few other cars and trucks, all empty, that were in the oil-splotched parking lot too, but he didn’t say anything.

Jack said, “I know the manager here, a real jerk. He’s probably not on duty this early, though. Lureen used to say he’d put rat poison in the food if he didn’t like somebody.”

Ennis lifted a brow at him. “You ever get on his wrong side?”

“Not me. You got an extra napkin?”

Ennis handed one over, started on his breakfast sandwich, and then drank from the coffee cup. He stretched his long legs toward the center and sort of slouched back half against the door, getting comfortable. He glanced sideways at Jack.

“You know what today is?”

Jack started to say, _Sure, Tuesday, August 28_ when it hit him, damn, that was exactly right, that was the day and date for sure. He hadn’t known it, but his Wyoming man had, even though Ennis was so set on not seeming womanly in any way.

Jack spread out the extra napkin on his leg. “Sure I do.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Now I do. It’s Tuesday, August 28.”

“Yep.” Ennis made a show of watching one of the workers come out a door and start sweeping the sidewalk. “Funny how time goes. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.”

After waiting half his life for it to happen, it seemed like their time had passed in a blink. The best damn six months he’d known, even including when him and Ennis blew up at each other, because this was just the start of their days together. Jack glanced down at the food on his lap for a couple of seconds. He’d never thought he’d appreciate a McDonald’s this way. “Me neither.”

Ennis scratched the side of his face. “Looking back, it seems like, oh, seven or eight weeks maybe. Not six months.”

“Six months today since you knocked on my door.”

“I didn’t think you’d remember, what with all that’s been going on.”

“How come you did? That’s not like you.”

“How do you know what’s like me in this department?”

Jack laughed soft and easy. “I know. I bet you forgot Alma’s birthday more than once.”

Ennis made a face. “I did not, cause I’m not that dumb. I guess you figuring out our day back in July, from when we were up on Brokeback, that made me think on it. Didn’t think we’d be in this town when this day got here, though.”

There wasn’t anything in front of them but a plain white wall, but the pattern that the sun made on it as it traced around the leaves was one of the prettiest things Jack had ever seen. “We’re in the same place this time. And this morning, that was special.”

“It wasn’t too bad. Didn’t plan that.”

“I know.”

“Don’t wanna get too pansy ass.”

“I’ll let you know if you do. Though I don’t think that’s up Slats Del Mar’s alley.”

“I was thinking.”

“Okay. That’s a good thing.”

“Shut up. I was thinking about how you said yesterday you thought you divorced me when you divorced Lureen, and how you’re always going on about how what we’ve got is like being married.”

“I am not always going on about that.”

“Sure you are. But those things go with how I feel about you cheating on me.”

He’d never said it before, but here was the chance, so Jack took it. “You cheated on me with that waitress.”

Ennis shifted some, lifting up and resettling to sit straighter. “I don’t know that it’s the same - - ”

“Come on, don’t play dumb. You know it is.”

“It ain’t the same cause you doing that with those men mattered to me more. I hurt more.”

Jack blew out air and resisted the urge to smack this man who loved him on the side of his head. “If we’re going to start comparing how much we hurt each other, that’s a bad way to start the day.”

“We already started the day, and it was good. But the thing is…how come?”

“How come what?”

“Now look who’s playing dumb. How come we’re using words like cheating and marriage and divorce? We’re just two guys, Jack.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

“You know I don’t want to go down the marriage road.”

Neither of them ever would again, and Jack was fine with that, but it would help a lot if him and Ennis were on the same page in the way they saw how things were between them. Jack turned and put his arm up on the steering wheel, twisting some toward Ennis. “You say that, but you don’t act like it. Neither one of us ever did. Since Brokeback, it’s been like we’ve got rights to each other.”

Ennis seemed to consider this. He took the hash brown out of its cardboard and broke it in two. “You want half of this?”

“Sure. I love those things.”

“You’ve got no taste. These things got no taste. Needs salt.” He took a bite and chewed. “So you’re saying if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck….”

“Then what we have isn’t any different from what anybody else has, if they’re lucky enough to have it happen to them.”

“Except it sure is different, and you know it. We’re different.”

“Ennis.” Jack grabbed the sandwich wrapper and wadded it up in his hand. He hadn’t always thought like this, because there’d been plenty of years when he’d kicked like a mule against being gay. But after almost forty years, this was what he believed.

“We’re different, yeah,” he said deliberately, “but this is the way we are. The way we were made, born thinking of men and not women. I don’t see how that’s any different from there being mesquite trees and apple trees and palm trees. It’s all part of the natural world.”

Ennis lifted a shoulder. He reached for the orange juice from the cardboard carrier and took his time drinking until it was half gone. Then he turned to Jack and gave him one of those frowns that was really a smile, if a person looked close. “I thought we were talking about ducks.”

Jack let out a choked laugh. “Sure, about ducks falling in love.”

“A duck falling in love with a mesquite tree, more like.”

Jack chuckled and sat back, taking a sip of coffee that burned his tongue, but he barely noticed. Him and Ennis talking about duck-love in a parking lot, that was one of the reasons, he supposed, why he didn’t feel like murdering the damn shithead anymore. “And nobody gets themselves all in a bother over that. Why should we care?”

“I guess I don’t. Now about those stadium lights. I don’t think they’ll be in stock anywhere near us. Guess I’ll put off getting them.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep. That means there won’t be the need to buy any more horses until the ones I have now get sold. You know two of them ain’t good for nothing except eating right now anyway, and I’m getting close to done with Fancy and Trouble.”

“Well, it’s something. Not much. Thanks for big favors.”

“I figured you’d like that.”

“Are you about finished eating, Slats?”

“Did I come all the way to Texas just for you to get up to your nonsense?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, thoughtful. “Maybe you did.”

“You are full of shit if you think that. I came to keep you in line.”

Jack threw the balled-up wrapper straight at Ennis, who caught it before it hit him in the face. 

“You are five years old, Twist. Come on, let’s get going. You’ve got calls to make.”

“Sure thing, Mama.”

Ennis snorted, but he sat up and began to gather their leftover packaging from breakfast and stuff it into the bag. Jack started the engine and headed for the highway, the motel, and the rest of their day, thinking about needing to talk with Bobby, thinking about a stallion slicked with rainwater, thinking about how sometimes the earth needed to shake in order to make solid ground.

*****


	15. Introductions

Once, when he’d been but ten years old, Jack’s mama had stood up against his daddy. Two days before Christmas, an old, mangy-looking dog had shown up on their doorstep, and even though Daddy had wanted to put the thing out of its misery, Brownie had taken up residence in the Twist house instead. “Brownie!” Daddy had said in disgust when Jack had named him. “That’s the stupidest name you coulda picked. It figures.” But Mama had found some table scraps, and the dog had licked Jack’s hands and followed him around. Jack was happier during the days that followed than any other time he could remember, until many years later when he’d made the trip to Riverton. 

During the drive from Texas to a second floor apartment in Riverton, Jack had told himself maybe Ennis wanted to be just friends. But when he’d charged down those steps, Jack hadn’t been able to do anything but reach out and grab him, to pull close and let himself get pulled close in a way two men who were just friends never hugged, body to body. For him, there hadn’t been any Lureen, or Bobby, or four years distance as he’d circled Ennis’s shoulders and murmured _sonuvabitch._ Suddenly the world made sense, and Jack couldn’t imagine a better place to be. Until a couple of heartbeats later, when he was pushed back against the wall and kissed to within an inch of his life. That was the real best place, and for those few seconds life was the way it should be. 

Jack looked over at where Ennis was driving the Ram now. “Dumbass,” he said quietly, fondly, for no real reason. There’d been a time when he’d thought he’d never feel this way again -- high-flying, the world spread open, happy -- for sure not with this man, about this man, not after the long, slow, downhill slide to misery and disappointment that he’d endured, and for sure not the day after Lureen’s funeral. 

Ennis flashed him one of his lopsided smiles, there and then gone like the best moments of a sunset. “Asshole,” he said right back, and he turned left off the highway toward the Newsome house and Bobby.

It was hard for Jack to think about talking with his son. He wanted to stay in those moments Ennis had given him this morning. But now Jack had new memories, didn’t he? As real and true as all the bad ones they’d made. Real good ones that would stay, and the prospect of more to come. 

Even though turning his thoughts to Bobby was like forcing himself into freezing water in the middle of January, he did it, fixing his sight on the Ram’s glove box. He feared what might happen. So far Bobby had been okay, needful of his dad during a bad time, but there wasn’t any guarantee that would last. He’d be leaving Bobby where L.D. would have easy access. And Jack knew L.D.; the poison would come pouring out. L.D. might not be talking about how his son-in-law was a faggot to just anybody in the street, but he couldn’t imagine the man keeping his mouth shut in front of his grandson. Jack was going to get torn down, spit on, pissed on, and kicked through L.D.’s words, he knew it. Somehow, he had to get through to Bobby today. He had to break through the boy’s fears, because he was bound to have them, and set things up so he’d come visit to Eagle Nest without a fuss. It’d be a hell of a lot easier to show him things were okay there, and that they could go forward together. 

Jack lifted one leg up over his knee and then put it back down again. On the phone, Faye had said L.D. had gone to the dealership, which she thought was best to keep his mind occupied; Jack thought that was a miracle because he wouldn’t have to fight to get to Bobby. He didn’t want to run into the old man again if he could help it. Maybe that was the coward’s way out, but Ennis seemed to be nervous about Lureen’s dad too. 

Too soon for Jack the truck pulled up the drive, all the way up to the top this time, to the front of the door, where Ennis put on the brake. Jack took a second to let himself think on it, that him and Ennis were actually sitting in front of L.D.’s house. That seemed unbelievable, right up there with Ennis asking him about Randy. 

“You okay?” Ennis asked, when he stayed without moving in his seat.

Jack scratched the back of his neck. “Sure.”

“You know what you’re gonna say to him?”

 _I still love you, Bobby._ He’d already said that. _Just because I’m with a man doesn’t make me less than you or anybody else._ Not that, because he thought Bobby would have to grow into that knowledge. That wasn’t something that could be said so it would stick; it had to be learned. 

“I’ll think of something. Give us about an hour, maybe a little more, then come back and I’ll introduce the two of you. Maybe we can go out to lunch or something.” 

Alarm flared in Ennis’s eyes, and Jack was pulled back down to Earth. 

“I don’t know about that, eating out with the boy and me in this town…. You think that’s a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said roughly, because he didn’t want to see Ennis’s point but did anyway. Duncan, Jerry, Jerry’s son, the fuckers who would’ve been glad to beat him and Ennis down to the ground by the side of the road…. Jack had no desire to come up against any of them, and they were around, he knew. “If it’s not lunch, I still want us to do something together, you and me and Bobby, so he can get used to you somehow.”

“You’re not asking for much, are you? You think an hour’s enough time before I come back?” 

Jack opened the door and got out, pushed it shut, and then talked through the open window. “I guess. It’s sure long enough for him to tell me he doesn’t want anything more to do with me.” 

“Hope not. My girls found a way to take this on when I talked with them, and maybe your boy will too. I saw how he was with you. He was glad you were here with him.” 

“How’d you tell Junior and Jenny, anyway? I should’ve asked you before.” 

“It ain’t the same, them being girls.”

“You can say that again.” 

“It ain’t the same, them -- ”

Jack reached into the cab and grabbed at him, far short, but he had to give it a shot. “I’m trying to be serious here.” 

“I know. Look, Bobby already knows how things are, right? I’m not sure what it is you want to do today.” 

Frustrated, Jack swiped his hat off. “Lureen stole my time with him, telling him her way. I’m not even sure what he knows, how much, and I’ve got to make sure he…he understands what this is all about.”

“Huh. What it’s about is you and me. You better make that plain.” 

“I’m hoping to do that.”

“You will.” 

“Oh, you’re some kind of fortuneteller now.” 

“Nope, but you’re pretty good with talking. If anybody can find the right way to say this, it’ll be you.” 

Jack put his hat back on. “But like you said, it’s different because he’s a boy. I don’t want to lose him. Look, I’ll see you later, right?”

“I’ll drive up here in about an hour and wait for you to come get me. It’s gonna be all right, Jack.” 

“If you say so.” 

Jack stepped away and watched while Ennis reversed the truck and drove back down to the road. 

*****

Somebody had started a peach orchard on the land west of the Newsome property, years before L.D. had built his house, and it was still there, behind the backyard and down the hill a ways. When Bobby had been younger, he used to get plenty restless when he was forced by Lureen to go visiting with her parents on Sundays. Jack had invented the habit of taking the boy for a walk when they should’ve been making nice inside with the relatives instead. The peach trees, a bad idea from the beginning and abandoned after years of effort had proved Childress wasn’t fruit tree country, had been a favorite place for them to escape. 

Jack led the way through the gate in the wooden fence and down the pathway that was overgrown and barely there, since nobody went this way anymore. Still, the ground was hard-packed and easy to walk on, with foot-high yellow grass whipping against their pants, and no doubt plenty of burrs and stickers being left. The hillside wasn’t steep, but back when they were taking their walks it sometimes had taken an hour to get down to the bottom and then dash back up to the top, with all their fooling around. 

Now Jack felt like he was falling, not knowing where he’d settle, except that Ennis, his Ennis who tended to look on the stormy side of things, had said it’d be all right. Maybe there’d be a safe landing down below, where the swaying of the peach tree branches across the open stretch at the bottom promised some relief from the hot August sun. Jack pulled his hat down farther to shade his eyes and glanced at Bobby, hiding behind one of L.D.’s Houston Astros baseball caps. His son didn’t look his seventeen-almost-eighteen years right then. Jack saw instead the six-year-old who’d cried going to his first day of kindergarten, and the nine-year-old who’d come home from the schoolyard with a split lip, bragging that the other boy had a black eye, and the fourteen-year-old who’d been so nervous over his first day at high school that he’d left his lunch and then his backpack in the kitchen. He’d missed the bus, and Jack’d had to drive him in. 

Bobby looked up, caught Jack’s gaze on him, and then brought his eyes back down to the grass, long-gone from spring freshness. “I miss Mom,” he said.

Jack felt his own pang that he supposed would always be there when he thought of Lureen. He remembered how she’d visited them and his heart got soft, recalling how brave she’d been. Then he reminded himself of how life had been pretty much hell the last years they’d been married. Just because she wasn’t with them anymore didn’t change that. He’d grated against her as much as she’d grated against him, and that was when they’d started their fights. 

Before they’d come outside from the Newsome house, he’d talked with Bobby about his allowance, about getting money as needed to the Montcriefs, and about how Jack should be able to send him to any state university if the boy could get admitted, but they hadn’t said anything important. Faye had been moving from dining room to kitchen still putting things to rights after the day before, and Jack had known they couldn’t talk father-to-son with her eyes on them. Which was why they were running away from her, two men in fear of an old lady. 

“I keep thinking I’ll turn around and Mom’ll be there,” Bobby went on. “Yesterday when all those people came back after the funeral, I thought I heard her voice three times.” 

Jack detoured around a yellow and black butterfly fluttering in the middle of the path, not caring that it could be smashed by something a lot bigger than it was. “I’ve heard that’s what happens.”

“I didn’t spend much time with her this past year, but I had my job and school and the band…. You know? But now I’ll never see her again.” Bobby stopped and shook his head, and Jack knew from the tremble in his voice that he was shaking off tears. Which he did, because then Bobby did what he’d always done when they’d come this way: he went off the path over to the one big boulder on the hillside, and he climbed it. This day, he climbed it with six big steps of his size ten Nike sneakers, when years before he’d scrambled around it, darting in and out of the overhangs, pretending it’d been a place the Texas Rangers used as their headquarters or maybe where Quanah Parker was gathering a band of Comanches. 

He stood on the top of the rock, a boy just this side of manhood who had his mother’s eyes but his father’s nose and lips, his mother’s love of cold winter days but his father’s love of ice cream, his own struggles with reading and a boy’s pride that he’d been picked to be squad leader for the drumline in the band. It would be another year or two before he grew to the man he’d be, but Jack thought he was fine-looking. It was no wonder he’d never had a problem with girls, always with a girlfriend the past few years. 

He looked down on Jack now. “I guess you don’t feel that same way, missing her, do you?” There was accusing in what he said. “Since you got divorced, you can’t.” 

“That’s not true. I can’t feel the same as you, because you’ve lost your mom, but I’ll miss her plenty.”

“You said on the phone that time that you were still friends.” 

Jack nodded, putting up his hand to shade against the sun so he could see how Bobby was taking this. He was feeling his way with every word. “We were, though this past year, you’ve got to know, we kept our distance. But if she’d lived, she would’ve been a part of my life, maybe, and I could’ve been a part of hers.”

“That isn’t the way it works after a divorce, Dad, and you know it.”

“It might have, with us.”

“You think so?”

If he’d got off his ass and told his son and his ex-wife the truth of his circumstances, maybe. Jack wondered if that ever would have happened; life and death had forced his hand instead. 

“It could have.” Maybe now was the time to steer this talk where they both knew it needed to go. “When she came out to us in New Mexico, she seemed to like Ennis. They got along, and he liked her. Maybe we could’ve all been friends. I don’t know.” 

Bobby held himself still for a space, but then he made his way down from the rock, jumping the last stretch and landing off balance, skidding downhill on the dirt for a ways. “Ennis,” he said, once he’d righted himself. “That’s the name of your…. The man you’re living with.”

“Come on,” Jack tried to say easily, “you know who he is. I went fishing with him practically since you were born.” 

“It’s a dumb name. I’ve never heard of anybody else with that name.”

“Get used to it,” Jack said sharply. But then he stopped himself, because he was sure that wasn’t the right way to go. “Let’s go on down,” he said, making sure he spoke mildly. 

Bobby was in front, so he started. Jack watched him, frowning. How could he make this go right? 

It took another couple of minutes before they were on level ground and walking across a field where the dried grass was dotted with tiny yellow and purple wildflowers, their color barely there but poking up, nature’s survivors. The sweet smell of peaches came from up ahead when Jack moved next to his son. 

“Bobby?”

“Yeah?” 

“Thanks for coming out here with me where your grandmom can’t listen in.”

“Grandmom’s okay, but she doesn’t want to leave me alone.”

“I know. I wanted to have some space to talk to you free and honest. You deserve answers to whatever you want to ask. You hear me?”

Bobby scuffed along with his thumbs hooked in his pockets and his head down. “Okay.” 

“I meant it, what I said before. This won’t work if we’re not honest with each other. You don’t much like Ennis’s name, and I guess that’s your right.” 

As soon as they got under the trees, a wind came up, rustling the leaves and making a big difference in how reasonable it was to be outside. Jack lifted his hat and let the breeze brush through his hair, and then he led the way over to where there were railroad ties, one on top of the other, set to show the orchard boundary at the corner. That was the best place for sitting if a person wanted to avoid the fire ants that were everywhere. 

Jack checked first to see if there were any ant mounds built up around, checked again for snakes or scorpions, and then he settled down, figuring his Dockers were pretty much done for anyway. Bobby sat on the ties across from him that were two high, marking the other boundary line. 

The trees weren’t tall, but then no trees in this part of Texas were, nothing like the Ponderosas or oaks that grew around the Moreno Valley. Still, any shade was good shade, and it was pretty comfortable where they were, especially if the air kept moving. 

“You remember when you got into that ant mound?” Jack asked. 

Bobby had his legs stretched out, his arms straight behind him. “Fuck, yes. They hurt like hell.” 

Jack figured he knew where the language came from, though Bobby hadn’t been much into cursing in front of him before. The boy needed to put himself forward, hold himself strong. This was probably as tough for Bobby as it was for Jack.

“They went right up your arm before I could do a thing. I never heard you holler that loud.” 

“I was, like, maybe eight or nine.” 

“I think you were older, maybe about ten.”

Bobby held out his arm and pointed. “See that? That’s a scar from where I scratched and one got infected.” 

Free and honest, he’d said, and that meant on both their sides. “Ennis has a couple of scars like that, from chickenpox, though. Not ants.” 

Bobby looked away, over toward where the yellowjackets were buzzing around some of the fallen fruit. Without irrigation, the trees had stopped producing much of anything worth picking, though still enough to get the attention of the insects. Most of the peaches were small and hard, though every once in a while a big, round, golden one would still make good eating, they had proved more than a few times. This late in the season nothing was left on the trees. It’d all fallen. All part of the cycle, because the trees would bloom again in the spring. 

“Are there ants in Wyoming? I never asked you.”

“Ants, sure, but not fire ants like we have here. Those came up from Mexico, I think. Nasty things.” 

“Once you get bitten, you watch out the next time.” 

A car horn blaring jerked Jack’s attention away. On the road he’d taken to Quanah with Ennis the day before, not more than a quarter mile away, some car was going fifty. Maybe there’d been a dog in the way. But nobody else was stirring out here, because L.D. and Faye’s nearest neighbor could barely be seen on a sunny day. The dry, yellow prairie was pretty much all that was around them, except for the peaches that had never belonged there in the first place. 

“Dad?”

“Yes, son?”

“When did you and Ennis…. You know. Like, when did you…get together?”

“I told you,” Jack said gently, relieved that the boy was following his lead. “I started going fishing with him right after you were born.” 

“No, I mean…. Not when you were friends. When it changed. When you got to be… what you’re doing now.”

There was such a temptation not to answer with the truth. It would be a hell of a lot easier to let Bobby go along with what he must be thinking, that this was something that had happened after years of friendship, some strange monster that’d reared up from inside of Jack like in that _Alien_ movie, ugly and unexpected but no fighting against it. But starting with a lie now would mean keeping it going long afterward. That’s not what Jack was after. He wanted the afterward time to be with both his son and his man and no holding back. He could feel that things were hanging in the balance, whether he had a son who afterward recognized him as his father or not. He had Ennis, he really had Ennis now, but he’d fathered a son he’d grown to love, and he wanted Bobby now and for years to come….

≈ ≈ ≈

_“Hello?”_

_“Hi, Bob, it’s Dad.”_

_“Oh, hi, Dad. How’re things with you?”_

_“Real good. It’s snowing early again, so the skiers will be happy. How’s Courtney?”_

_“She’s doing fine. She’s over at her aunt’s right now. Sorry, you won’t be able to talk to her this time.”_

_“That’s okay, I’ll catch her another day. How’s that rascal of yours?”_

_“Malcolm is now officially six feet tall. I don’t think it’s fair, that he’s taller than me at only fourteen.”_

_“Matches me, though.”_

_“Don’t think he hasn’t pointed that out to me. How’s Ennis?”_

_“Real good. Did you know we got him a new truck last week? Ford F-250 with all the extras. He’s going out to Jenny’s in December, and I wanted him to be safe on the road. You know how he likes to drive his trucks to the ground before he gets a new one.”_

_“I know. I’m shocked you got him to give up that Silverado he’s had for years. Say, Dad, talking about traveling, we were hoping the two of you would come over for Thanksgiving. You think you might be able to do that or are you promised somewhere else?”_

≈ ≈ ≈

He wanted Ennis and Bobby, both, for years to come, with no holding back.

“Bobby, Ennis and me were together like that from when I met him in 1963.” 

That brought Bobby’s startled eyes back to him. “Since…. Fuck. 1963?”

All those years cheating on Lureen; no way the boy would miss that’s what it meant. “That’s right.”

“Mom didn’t tell me that. She…. How old were you then?”

“I was nineteen, almost twenty. Two years older than you.” Though it hardly seemed possible. Bobby didn’t seem nearly old enough for that sort of thing to happen to him, something that was the one sure thread of Jack’s whole life, and what had never left him. 

“Then you….”

Bobby got up and walked away fast, close to the next tree, where he bent over and picked up a stick. Jack let him go and waited, wishing he’d planned what he was going to say instead of going seat-of-the-pants like he always did, but it wasn’t like he’d -- 

“You’ve been like this a long time.” 

It wasn’t said like a question, but Jack answered anyway. “That’s true.” He got to his feet but stayed where he was, not knowing if being close was a good idea, deciding instead to give the boy some space. “Bobby, it’s just me.” 

“I know. That’s what Mom said. She said I had to know how you were living, so we could keep on being a family.” 

“Your mom was a wise woman in lots of ways.”

“I’m not sure I want to be that kind of family.” 

Jack took a breath, dry with no moisture in it to soothe his suddenly aching throat. “I guess I can understand that. I know this is hard on you.” 

“No kidding. What the fuck am I supposed to tell people?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all, because it’s nobody’s business but ours.” 

Bobby swung around. “I’m dating Sandy now, so how about my girlfriend? How about Charlie and his parents?”

Jack shook his head. “I live way the hell out in the next state. They aren’t ever going to…. That won’t be a problem, son, unless you make it one.”

“Me? I’m not going to say anything, are you kidding? Like, who would even talk to me if they knew?” Like a soldier walking into battle but wishing he could run in the opposite direction, Bobby came back to his seat on the ties. He looked straight at Jack. “You really are? You’re really a homosexual?”

Jack swallowed and sat down too, though the grooves in the wood were hard on his ass. “Yeah.”

“You’re sure. You’re really, really sure?”

It was the stare that was getting him down, like his dick had suddenly grown four feet long and was hanging out of his pants. 

“Do you think I’d be putting myself through this, talking to you, if that weren’t true? Come on, give me some credit.”

“But….” Bobby reached down to the ground and came up with a couple of still-green leaves. He started to shred them into pieces. “It doesn’t seem real, like Mom not really being gone. This morning I woke up and, like, I thought she was only on a trip somewhere and would be back any day. I knew it wasn’t true, but….”

“That’s normal, I think, to have those thoughts. Doesn’t make you any less for them.”

“It feels the same way, you being like this. Mom told me about her being a lot worse, and then two days later she told me about you, but…. I guess I couldn’t believe it.” 

Jack could just imagine, Bobby hearing his mom was going to die, and then having the rest dumped on him. No wonder nothing felt real to him; he’d had way too much to deal with in too short a time. Jack cursed at himself and wished he’d had this talk with the boy months ago, instead of being wrapped up in his own life. He’d been shit for a father.

“This is the way it is. Believe it.” He struggled to find something that would help prove things. “Uh, maybe meeting Ennis will make it more real to you. He’s coming by in a little while.” 

“Fuck. You’re kidding.”

“Nope. He dropped me off and said he’d be back in an hour or so.” 

“He…. I don’t want to meet him.”

“Bobby,” Jack said, understanding, not letting himself react any other way, “you’ve got to.”

“He was at the funeral home, wasn’t he? You were talking to him and Mr. Malone.”

“Yeah, that was Ennis. He went to the funeral too.”

Bobby’s lips got tight. “What was he doing there? He didn’t belong at my mother’s funeral. Not after what the two of you….” He shut up and looked down at the ground between his knees. 

Jack felt like he was picking his way through a field of cactus, close-packed. “It’s not something he wanted me to go through alone. It’s been hard on me, Bobby, losing your mom.” _And facing up to you,_ but that he didn’t say. 

“I know,” the boy said. “Sorry.” He scooped up some more of the long, thin leaves and started in on them, and Jack watched him shred like a champion for a while. He saw some dark burrs on his Dockers and began to pick at them one at a time, feeling them stick into his fingers, hurting, but there wasn’t any other way of getting them off. 

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have it,” Bobby said into their quiet.

For a second Jack didn’t understand, but then he did. Of course Bobby would be thinking in that direction. He flicked the last burr away and put his elbows on his knees, leaning forward so he was closer, trying to reassure. “No, I don’t think you’re gay. I’m not sure that it works that way, anyway, going from father to son.” 

“But, like, how do you know for sure? Maybe I am and I don’t know it.” 

“I think you’d know by now.”

“You were nineteen when -- ”

“I wasn’t nineteen when I knew.”

“When did you? Tell me when you knew.”

It hadn’t been in his mind that he’d talk about this part of his life to his son, ever, but maybe that was because he hadn’t been able to approach this talk in his thoughts; he saw that now, that he’d been afraid of it for a long time. Even Ennis had told his girls before Jack had opened his mouth. Now Bobby was asking a question he didn’t want to answer. He kept himself from thinking of those Lightning Flat days for good reasons. 

“I…when I was a boy I….” He stopped, realized he was paying close attention to his shoelaces and not his son, and looked up to see Bobby’s big, anxious eyes. “You sure you want to hear this?”

“Yeah. It would help if…. Yeah, I do.” 

“Okay then.” Jack straightened, put his hands on his knees, and tried to make some sense of the way things had been back then. “You know your granddad Twist and me don’t get along.” 

“I know that.”

“I was just a boy, but he rode me so hard…. I started to wonder what was wrong with me, because I saw other dads weren’t like that. He’s such a…. For instance, I can’t imagine him and me having a talk like this, ever, about anything, even if it was about the price of stock or the fucking weather.” 

“I only met him those couple of times. I can hardly remember him.”

“You don’t have any reason to remember him,” Jack said, as hard as pounding a nail. “There was never any reason to expose you to his way of thinking or talking. I’m sorry you don’t know your grandma, but that’s the way it is.”

“Dad, it’s okay.”

“Yeah.” Jack took off his hat and dragged his arm across his forehead, wiping away the sweat, though thinking of his daddy gave him a cold chill. He put his hat back on. “Anyway, I got to wondering what was wrong with me, why he was like that. He treated me bad and made me feel like I was dirt. I don’t know why. There’s no answer anywhere, and it doesn’t have anything to do with how I am now, because it started back when I was barely walking. He was a bastard from the beginning.” 

“Wow. You’ve never really said that about him…. I mean, like, I sort of guessed.” 

Jack aimed a weak smile his way. “Don’t bother guessing about him. He’s not worth your time.” 

“But that must have been real tough on you.” 

Jack tried to shrug, but it felt good hearing Bobby say that. “Yeah. Some. Anyway, it seems like from the time I was old enough to think, I was always wondering what I’d done wrong and what was in me that he hated. I was always checking on everything I did, everything I thought…. Maybe I caught on to how I was because of that. I was maybe seven when I began to wonder why men couldn’t marry other men. Seemed real reasonable to me.” 

“Wow.” 

“But even that’s not exactly clear when you’re that age, you see? It was slow, dawning on me, that I looked on men that much differently from the way that was expected. I always got on good with girls. I grew up having lots of friends who were girls in school. Boys too.” 

“But how old were you when you knew for sure?”

“For sure?” Jack gave the shortest laugh a man could give. “Eight months after you were born.” 

“What?”

“It’s not a thing a man wants to think about himself. It takes a long time to believe in it all the way.”

“Shit. If it took you that long, then maybe I am gay and I don’t -- ”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that.” Jack backtracked in a hurry. Damn, he might’ve just undone what he was trying to do. “Sorry, I was being…I was being dumb. I said that because of something that happened between me and Ennis. Look, I knew for sure when I was thirteen.”

“Really?” 

“Yeah.”

“How?”

“How?” Jack took a couple of seconds to put his thoughts in order. He’d grown up that year, six inches in as many months, it’d seemed, hair sprouting under his arms and on his chin, his balls dropping and his dick giving him a run for his money the way it wanted to be paid attention to morning, noon, and night. He’d felt like he could fuck a keyhole if it stood still, and he wasn’t particular as to its shape or size. 

“A girl in my class, Natalie Harper, she kissed me after school while we were waiting for the bus, around the corner from the other kids. I thought that was real fine, that it was some sign I was growing up. It felt good, only not as good as what I was expecting when it finally happened. No fireworks, see? Then I opened my eyes and there was her brother coming over. He shoved her away and stood in front of me, fighting mad…. And then there were fireworks. You see what I mean?”

“Oh. Yeah.” 

Jack rubbed his jaw. “He had me down on the ground with one swing.” 

“So…is that, like, normal for knowing when you’re…you know. About that age?” 

Gary had been absolutely positive, in his Gary way, from about the age he could talk, or that’s what he’d said. Randy said he’d been eleven and sleeping over at a friend’s house, not able to close his eyes for looking at the other boy. And Ennis…. Jack thought for a second of saying that Ennis had started having thoughts when he was nine, but that had been told to him at a precious time, and Jack knew there were some things that had to stay always between them. He had to be careful of anything he shared with Bobby about his private man. 

“I think that’s about right. Or younger. You’ve never, uh, had thoughts about any of the boys you know?”

Bobby made a face. “Ugh. That’s gross. Hell, no.”

“It would sure surprise me, considering how the father of Erin McReady caught you and his daughter together last winter, remember? I had to drop everything and drive over here to stop him from taking away something precious that would make sure you never jumped on top of another girl again.” 

“Dad!” 

Jack cocked an eyebrow at him. “You ever used those Trojans I got you after that?”

“Hell, Dad, I’m not telling you that!”

But Jack could tell from the way he looked away that the whole package was still stashed somewhere, not opened. “What, I have to answer questions about stuff like that, but you won’t? This goes two ways.”

“I’m not asking those kinds of questions.” 

Jack chuckled and leaned forward to tap Bobby on his knee. “I know. Not that I’d answer them anyway. I won’t give you a bad time about this new girlfriend. Sandy? Was that the girl I saw on Sunday night?”

“Yeah. She plays flute in the band.” 

“I hope she’s a nice girl.” 

“She is. Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you ever love Mom?”

A lot caved in on Jack then: The wedding picture on display every day of their married lives, and the flicker of guilt in him every time he walked by it. The time he’d got into a screaming match with Lureen at midnight, when she’d grabbed a jelly jar and thrown it at him, but he’d ducked and it’d splattered against the wall. Coming back that first time after Juarez and taking a shower right away, sliding into bed next to her and gathering her up in his arms, because he fucking needed comfort and she was there when Ennis wasn’t and never would be. The day he’d left the house for Amarillo, and she’d said _good luck, Jack_ and he’d said _thanks, I’ll need it_ without really knowing for sure if she had him figured. 

“Bobby, your mom was a special lady, and don’t ever let anybody tell you different. Don’t you forget her.” 

“I know, but -- ”

“Did I love her? As much as I could.” But that wasn’t the whole truth. He was fooling himself as well as Bobby, or pretending something different from what they both knew had been so. “It sure wasn’t the marriage kind of love she deserved. She was so…. She sparkled, Bobby, when she was younger especially. I’d never met anybody like her and I’ve never met anybody since, even if we weren’t suited to living together. Those last years weren’t good. I bet you remember how it was before the divorce.”

“Yeah, I sure do. It was sort of a relief when you finally decided to leave.” 

“I think we would have got on a lot better if we hadn’t lived together, if we’d just been friends.” 

“But I don’t understand something. I thought homosexuals couldn’t do it with a woman. How could you have been married to mom all those years and had me? I mean, you must have…. But now you’re with a man. I don’t get it.” 

Christ. Why not ask the last time he’d jerked off? 

“Bobby.” Jack found one more burr on his pants that he spent a couple of seconds taking off. “It’s not like that with a lot of gay men, all or nothing. There’s what you can do if you really have to, and then there’s what you want to do, what comes naturally, like breathing. Understand? There are plenty who got married like I did, and their wives never know the truth.”

“You’re kidding. You mean somebody I know who’s married might be gay?”

 _Yeah, like Randall Malone you saw at the funeral home._ “That’s one way of living. It’s possible, and I’m not the only one who’s done it. Ennis did it. It’s a cover-up, a lie, trying to be normal and have the life that everybody expects you to have. Or trying to convince yourself you’re not really that way. It never works, though. You can go through the motions…but it’s not what you really want.” 

“Ennis was married?”

“He has two girls a little older than you. He got divorced in 1975.” 

“What’s he…is he one of those….” Bobby swatted at a yellowjacket buzzing around. 

“One of those what?”

“I thought all homos were the same, that you could tell right away from seeing them. You know, lisping. Or always going like this.” He flapped his hand with a classic limp wrist. “He isn’t like one of them, is he?”

Jack remembered Rosie’s bar in San Antonio. The freedom there. The make-up. The drag queens. Half the men he’d danced with had been men any one of Bobby’s school friends could have pointed to and hollered “fag!” at first sight…and then maybe they’d push the man down, kick him, punch him, all for fun, because he wasn’t like them.

“Bobby,” he said firmly. “I’ve met plenty of men like that, real obvious about being gay. You think they can help that? You think they want to be different? Some of them are good people and some of them are creeps, but they’re all just people, you see? It happens that Ennis isn’t like that. I doubt anybody meeting him would have any idea of…that he’s with me, the same as people meeting me would have no idea I’m with him and not a woman. But even though we aren’t like the gay men you might see on TV, easy to spot and laugh at, that doesn’t change the fact that’s what we are. Gay. Which I know maybe in your mind is one of the worst things that could be said about your dad.” 

Bobby looked away. He rubbed his palms on his jeans.

“Your Granddad is going to say it, that and a whole lot more. I can imagine the words he’s going to use, because I’ve heard them all. People hear them and think the worst, think of some man they don’t know or understand, who’s so different from them that he’s scary.”

Jack scooted closer, until he was about falling off the railroad tie, right on the edge. “You’re going to have a choice in the next little while, son. You can listen to L.D. or you can remember me, your dad, and be willing to give me a chance. I know this is awfully sudden, and I wish it weren’t like this. I don’t expect you to be happy about how I am and how I’m living, because being gay is what every boy your age fears and makes fun of. It’s sort of a reflex, all the teenagers carrying on about the faggots. Well, now you know one of them for real. You’re about to know two of them, and Ennis is a fine man, somebody I’m real proud to be with. I want you to come out to New Mexico and stay with us, get to know how things are so you’ll see we aren’t all that different from anybody else. I’m the same dad who taught you how to blow your nose and how to drive too. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“I guess. When did you want me to visit? Why can’t you come here?”

“I can, sometimes, but I’ll have to stay at a motel. It won’t be like we’re together, which is what I want. The Christmas holiday, spring break, come on out to our place then. And maybe…you usually get a four day weekend in September, don’t you? The state fair day and a teacher’s work day, isn’t that right?”

That brought Bobby’s head up. “The holidays? You mean Christmas? I don’t know. And you forget I’ve got to march for the football games on Friday nights.” 

“Yeah, I guess I did forget that. Sometimes you have Thursday games, though, don’t you?” 

“Sometimes.” 

Band had always been important to Bobby, his way of having a place in the school that set him apart and above. Jack knew there’d be no fighting against that. “Well, we’ll see, okay? Not like we have to decide any of that now.” 

Jack’s watch showed that time had passed fast. He wanted another hour. Hell, he wanted a lot more, but that was something for the future, when the pain of losing his mom had faded some for his son, after he’d had a chance to think about all they’d talked about. So much was riding on this little space of time. Was what Jack had said enough? He didn’t have a clue. But he couldn’t think of what else to say. 

“You got anything more you want to ask about? Cause if you don’t, maybe we should get going. Ennis’ll be waiting on us.” 

Jack got up and dusted off the seat of his pants, thankful he didn’t have a butt full of splinters, and then he led the way back under the peach trees and through the fallen fruit toward the path that wound back up to the house. He squinted as he came out from under the cool shade and into the sunlight again. It was funny, how he’d fought against bringing the boy to live with them, but now it was awfully important to him that Bobby come out to County Road 19 and find everything there okay. 

They were making their way through the dusty field that stretched before the base of the hill when Bobby said, “I did think of something else.” 

Maybe he’d be asking questions for the next couple of years. Bobby had never been a subdued kind of kid. He’d been real snotty during a certain stage when he’d been younger, that couldn’t be denied. But Jack figured the best thing would be that the questions kept being asked and he kept answering. That would be a lot better than silence and distance. “Okay, what?” Jack kept walking and looked up to where only the roofline of the Newsome house could be seen. 

“You still haven’t told me what Ennis is like.” 

Jack turned toward him and made like a boxer aiming at Bobby’s midsection, but he pulled his punch and it wasn’t even close. “He’s ten feet tall and he eats drummers like you for breakfast.”

Bobby jumped back from the punch but then came alongside to walk next to Jack through the grass. “Oh, come on, Dad. I really want to know.”

“You’re gonna meet him in ten minutes. Can’t you wait?”

“You said you’d tell me things.” 

“Okay, okay. Though I don’t know that there’s much to say.” Jack scratched over his ear, tilting his hat to reach, trying to figure what was okay to let loose. “He’s, uh, he’s a little taller than me. I think he’s six two. But skinny. He needs to put on at least ten pounds. Last year he got real sick because something happened, and that’s when he lost it. I try to get him to eat more, but it’s a losing battle. You’d think he’d put on weight because he’s a good cook, makes the best pork chop thing, but he doesn’t. Maybe because he works day and night, and that takes it right off.” He paused, thinking he was talking too much about how Ennis looked. He started again. “He doesn’t smile much, and he doesn’t talk much in company, so don’t expect to hear a lot. Sometimes he’s hard to understand, he talks kind of low. He loves his girls. It’s been tough on him, not seeing them much since he moved from Wyoming. He’s the best man with horses I’ve ever met. There, that enough?”

Bobby had one thumb through his beltloop again. He looked like he was really listening as they walked along, trying to understand. “What’s he work at?”

“He’s the foreman at a horse ranch near us, and on the side he’s training horses of his own, trying to get a business going that way. He stays real busy.” 

One shoulder hunched up toward Bobby’s ear. 

“How come you picked him to be with? Why couldn’t you find some other man like you who lives around here?” 

“Why him? If I knew the answer to that one I’d be writing poetry. Nobody knows why a person falls for one person and not another, why you just can’t manage without them close.”

Bobby stopped dead in his tracks, and Jack went on a few steps before realizing. He turned, looked around to make sure there wasn’t any rattlesnake ready to strike, and then asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Falls for a person…. What? Are you saying….” 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what had Bobby poleaxed. 

“Bobby,” Jack said gently. “I guess I’ve done a real poor job of talking if I didn’t make that clear. What, you thought that gay men don’t feel like that? You thought it was all about physical stuff and nothing else? It isn’t like that and never has been, not between Ennis and me.” 

“I…I’m sorry. It’s only that…. It’s hard to imagine two men, you know, like, all lovey-dovey.” Bobby glanced at him and then away, as if the thought of his dad like that was more than he could take. 

Jack laughed softly. “You will never see lovey-dovey from us, trust me. I’m not a big fan of it myself and, anyway, Ennis Del Mar would jump into a crack in the ground before that happened. But that doesn’t mean…that doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t there. You see?”

“I guess.”

“Son, I’m not putting you through all this, meeting Ennis, coming out to our place, just because he’s the flavor of the month.” And thank whatever god there might be for Tuesday morning showers, so that he could say this with no hesitation. Ennis loved him; they were going to stick. He’d give Ennis the time he needed to make sure that happened. 

“Twenty years from now, maybe you’ll have a family. Maybe you’ll want your kids to see their granddad and invite me to a Fourth of July barbecue you’re having in your backyard. If you do that, I’m going to show up with Ennis. He’s part of the package deal that’s me. See that? This is the way it is with me, my life that I want you to be part of. You and me, we either go forward knowing that or…. Well, there isn’t any other choice, not for me. How about you?” 

“I…I guess. Not like I’ve got any other family.” Bobby was frowning, and he came around to what Jack had known would be the sticking point. “All those years when I was growing up and you would go on your fishing trips to Wyoming, you were…like that. With Ennis. When you and Mom were married. Did she know?”

Jack sighed. “I’m not proud of that.” 

Bobby eyed him with the resentment that Lureen had never had the chance to show. “Fuck, I guess not.”

“She knew, yeah, though I don’t know for how long. We talked about it when she came out those weeks ago, and we made our peace with it. She understood.”

“She did?”

A boy still in high school, still green to the world and the hurts that can be thrown at a person: there was no way Jack could explain. And he didn’t want to let Bobby in that close to the marriage, privy to things he had no right to know about and that weren’t okay to share with a son. He could never say to Bobby that finding out for sure that he was gay must have been a relief to Lureen, because it explained the widening distance between them that had begun early on, his indifference in the bedroom, and how the best-looking woman for miles around standing naked in their kitchen hadn’t been enough to stir him. It hadn’t been her, it’d been him. 

But there were maybe some things he could say. “Yeah, I think she did understand. But mainly she was worried about you. She came out to Eagle Nest so she could meet Ennis, to make sure that it’d be okay for you to be with him. That trip came at a time she already wasn’t feeling good, and maybe she wanted to do other things, but she did it for you.” 

The boy bit his lip. “I know,” he said.

“Your mom wanted to be easy in her mind that you’d be cared for right. When she left, she was easy, and maybe that’s something you should remember. When she said good-bye to Ennis, he told her we’d be there for you, both him and me, and I know for sure she was glad to hear that.” 

And then she’d told Ennis to take care of Jack. He wouldn’t ever forget that. Lureen hadn’t exactly given her forgiveness when Jack had said he was sorry, though he was, and he wished things hadn’t been the way they were. But she’d done the next best thing and freed him from the kind of guilt that Alma had laid on Ennis’s shoulders for years. 

“She loved you a lot, Bobby.”

Bobby didn’t have anything to say to that, but there were tears in his eyes. Jack put his arm around his boy’s shoulders, praying that he’d done right this past hour, and together they walked toward L.D.’s house.

*****

When Jack and Bobby got to the top of the hill, they didn’t bother going through the back gate to the yard, but went around the fence to the side of the house where the garage was. There wasn’t any Ram in the driveway with Jack’s fellow sitting in it, not yet. 

“Guess he’ll be here soon.” Jack looked toward Bobby, who seemed just as pleased to be postponing the moment. He noticed the basketball hoop that L.D. had put up over the garage as soon as him and Faye had moved in, when the boy hadn’t been close to being old enough to make a basket. “Hey, you want to shoot some hoops while we’re waiting? Or you want to go in and watch your grandmom make cookies?”

Bobby swiped at his dad’s shoulder, and Jack felt good that they could still be that free with each other. “Come on, Dad. Of course I want to play. Hold on and I’ll get the ball.” 

It’d been more than a year, probably close to two years since Jack had shot baskets with his son, though it was something they’d done a lot when Bobby had been growing up. Plenty of times Lureen had shooed them out of the house when she had something else going on. Jack had been glad there’d been something for Bobby to do with other boys his age outside too. Bobby and Charlie had become good friends when they’d spent one whole summer doing practically nothing else, the steady _thump thump_ of the ball against the concrete outside their kitchen window about driving Jack crazy every evening, but he’d never said anything against it.

Now he saw that Bobby had got a lot better since they’d played last, with a pretty jump shot that arced like a rainbow, like in the pros, and able to guard against Jack with a quick hand reaching in for a steal or a deflection. The boy had never shown any interest in joining a kid’s team or one of the church leagues, but that was okay cause he’d had his sights set on music and marching from early on.

Ten minutes passed, and Jack was being left in the dirt. He’d worked up a sweat and was cursing the fact that he’d worn good shoes -- not that he’d even brought any sneakers to San Antonio, that seemed to have happened about a million years ago -- when the sound of a truck turning into the driveway came to his ear. He passed the ball to Bobby, who for sure had heard the same thing but was acting like he hadn’t. The boy took up a spot on their imaginary foul line and began to shoot, one foul shot after another, bouncing the ball in between like it was real important to do it well, acting like nothing he cared much about one way or the other was set to happen. Jack let him be; the boy had a right. He wiped his forehead with his arm and walked around to the front of the house, to make sure Ennis saw him, and there was a feeling of relief when the white truck came climbing closer and he could see the man driving. He’d primed Bobby for the introduction as best he could. Now he was ready for reinforcement, though he wasn’t sure what kind of reinforcement Ennis might be.

The Ram stopped short of where he was standing, and Ennis got out right away. For a second the world tilted, because he saw Ennis the way Bobby was going to: a middle-aged man with thinning, wheat-colored hair, dressed like the working man he was in jeans and a button-down shirt, good-looking but so quiet in his ways that he was hard to notice, the man who’d stepped between Bobby’s mom and his dad, who kissed Bobby’s daddy when a man shouldn’t do such things, the man who’d come to Lureen’s funeral when Bobby wished he hadn’t. 

But then…then it was his Ennis, here at L.D.’s house because he knew this was important to Jack, and him and Ennis were in this life, both their lives going on at the same time, together.

“What’s the matter with you?” Ennis asked, a frown creasing his face. “You been fighting a war or something? Everything go okay?” He slammed the truck door, that must surely have been heard by Faye inside. 

Jack felt as jumpy as oil sizzling in a frying pan now that they were going to do this, but he forced a smile as Ennis came over to him. “Yeah, it’s all right. We’ve just been playing around out here. You…you ready for this?”

“No, I stopped by to let you know I’m leaving town right now. You having second thoughts?”

“No, no.” 

“Your talk go okay?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I guess so. Come on around here.”

He led the way and knew Ennis was right behind him, around the corner of the fine gray-brick house to the three car garage, to where Bobby was practicing so fiercely it looked that he was ready to join the NBA. 

Jack stopped short of the part of the driveway they’d been using as their court. Ennis came up beside him, and Jack saw him take off his hat out of the corner of his eye. He cleared his throat and felt like a fool, ridiculous, since this was all turned on its head. It was Bobby who was supposed to be nervous at introducing some girl to his dad, wasn’t it? Not Jack who had an itch between his shoulder blades to be bringing his man to his son’s notice. 

“Bobby?”

The boy held the ball up in the best way. A person could’ve taken a picture of him for _Sports Illustrated._ He aimed and shot it toward the hoop. It went in with hardly a swish as the net flexed. 

“Good shot,” Ennis murmured from next to him, but Jack doubted Bobby heard. 

_Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump._

“Bobby?”

Another aiming, another shot, another basket. 

“It doesn’t look like your talk went good after all,” Ennis said, as Bobby kept bouncing like his life depended on it. “He doesn’t want any part of me.” 

“No, it’s all right. Bobby?” 

“Maybe let him be. It ain’t a good idea for him right now, as close to -- ”

“Ennis, I said it’d be all right. Give me a minute -- ”

The shot Bobby took then didn’t come close to going in. It bounced off the backboard and down to the ground, then away from the boy reaching for it, all the way over to where Jack was standing. He was fuming over how Bobby was acting, but he’d never been one to pass on a god-given opportunity when it literally bounced right into his hands. 

He gave Ennis a glance and raised his voice so there wouldn’t be any mistaking. “I ever tell you about how me and Bobby used to play this game all the time?” 

Nobody would ever accuse Ennis of being fit for the stage, him being one hell of a bad actor, but Jack saw the light go on in his eyes. “Maybe a time or two,” he got out. 

Jack bounced the ball twice. It was warm against his hands. “He’s pretty good, but I bet two old men like us could beat him. What do you say?” 

Ennis tended to play basketball like he’d been introduced to the game the day before, just one of those things he wasn’t much good at. Jack could see the pride flare up and knew Ennis didn’t want to be seen in a bad way in front of the boy, but then he could see the sense kick in. 

“Uh, sure.” 

Ennis perched his hat on a big bush next to where Jack’s and Bobby’s were and, real determined, rolled up his sleeves. Jack called out to Bobby, who’d been standing stock still, “Are you up to a game or two? Two on one, but I think you’re good enough that it evens things up.” 

Bobby shrugged. “Okay.” 

And that was all they said for the next twenty minutes as they played first to fifteen baskets, unless a person counted “your turn,” “damnit,” “good shot, Bobby,” “shit,” “I’ll get it,” one “fuck” from each of them, “you going to shoot or aren’t you?” and every once in a while a “watch out.” Bobby played defense like he was the Berlin Wall, and though the sun shining down sure got to Jack, and seemed to be getting to Ennis, turning both of them red-faced, Bobby didn’t seem to mind, a true son of Texas born and raised there. Could be, though, that he had twenty-two years on them and sneakers. Jack didn’t pull back, and he was pretty sure that Ennis was playing all out, which wasn’t saying all that much when it came to him and basketball, especially considering how his ankle was probably paining him. Jack should’ve thought about that before suggesting this game. But he was doing his best, a line creased between his eyes showing that.

Jack tried to lose himself in the rhythm of it, but that wasn’t going to happen. He was too aware of every shot Ennis missed and of every one Bobby made. He couldn’t help but notice the first time Bobby slammed into Ennis and how his son flinched, couldn’t help but see the look that flashed in Ennis’s eyes at that, quickly covered. Jack was too aware of when he moved to the basket, tripped, and went flying halfway across the court practically to Ennis’s feet. Ennis reached out a hand to help him up, but Jack resisted the temptation to look and see if Bobby was checking them out, how they touched. Normally Jack would’ve had his shirt off in the first five minutes, because it was soaked through, but he didn’t do that now. He wanted Ennis to feel comfortable enough to do the same, Bobby too. How dumb was it that the three of them were sweating up a storm, a game of shirts and skins with all shirts?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

But, gradually, things changed. Bobby won the first game big time, shame on them, and they started on their second. Their second half hour playing, their second half hour together, the three of them, Jack and Ennis and Bobby. Basketball was a sport you couldn’t help touching, pushing, shoving, hands making contact, and even a boy not sure about his dad’s homosexual lover had to stop making a face every time it happened. The way they played loosened up. Ennis began to move more freely, like he wasn’t watching every step anymore, and he made some baskets where Jack wanted to clap him on the back. At least they wouldn’t get slaughtered this game.

The score was eleven to nine, Bobby leading. Jack was guarding Bobby close, doing a good job of driving him away, when the boy pivoted on his heel and made a turn-around jumper. Ennis went to get the ball from under the net and stopped to wipe off his sweat with the tail of his shirt, that he tucked back in, one-handed, when he was done. “Where’d you learn that?” he asked, sort of gruff, and Jack was afraid maybe Bobby hadn’t understood. 

But he had, and Bobby said his first words directly to Ennis. “I don’t know. I kept trying it last summer.”

“I didn’t think your daddy taught you that. He’s good, but he doesn’t have that. That’s a pretty shot.” 

“I’ve got another one I’ve been practicing,” Bobby volunteered.

“Oh, yeah? You want to show us?”

“Sure, but somebody’s got to guard me.” 

Jack stood back, because he wasn’t in this and didn’t want to be. He watched Ennis toss the ball to his son and then come in close. Bobby let himself get pushed back, dribbling the whole while, and then he drove toward the net through what would’ve been the paint if they’d had a real court. Ennis was a good six, seven inches taller than Bobby, but Jack heard Bobby say, “No, come in closer.” Ennis did, waving his hands around, and Bobby went for the jump shot. Except he really did do it like the pros, leaning back and aiming as he reached the high spot, creating space between him and Ennis as he shot. He hit the basket with a _swoosh._ There was nothing Ennis or anybody else could’ve done to stop it. 

“Hey,” Jack said, coming forward to get the ball. “That was real good.”

“Sure was,” Ennis agreed.

“How often can you hit that shot?” Jack wanted to know.

Bobby lifted a shoulder. “Most times. That’s a fall away jumper. You want to try against me?” 

“Sure.” 

Jack wasn’t any better at guarding against it than Ennis had been, as Bobby made two out of three tries. Ennis defended the last time and managing to slap the ball away because of his long reach. But Jack was real proud of his boy, except when Bobby wanted the shots he’d made to count in their game, which wasn’t right. 

“It’s okay,” Bobby said. “I’ll beat you anyway.” 

Just then, Faye’s voice calling from the backyard reached him. “Jack?” 

Jack looked over to Ennis, a million thoughts racing through his mind about how far to push this meeting-people thing. “Over here, Faye.” 

The side gate opened. Jack could’ve laughed at the way Faye peeked out, throwing a glance at Ennis so scared, honest to god scared of a man that she’d never met before, like he was an ax murderer or something worse. Except it wasn’t funny, not one bit. She fixed her sight on Jack. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your game,” she said, “but I thought you and Bobby might like some iced tea. I’ve got some for you on the table in the yard.” 

Then she pulled back and disappeared. The back door slammed shut. 

Jack was thirsty as hell and iced tea sounded like heaven, even offered to only two of the three of them. His eyes found Ennis, who didn’t look happy. 

“She’s L.D.’s wife, Ennis. And old. You can’t expect much from her.”

“Huh.”

“You thirsty?” Jack asked.

“Guess so.”

Bobby was already through the gate. Though Jack knew Ennis would’ve preferred to leave, they followed after the boy. It was better than playing ball with their tongues hanging out. 

One of the things people outside Texas never understood was how thirsty the weather could make a man. When a Texan asked for a drink, he meant in a glass big enough to be worthy of the size of the state. Faye had brought out twenty-four ounce glasses, red plastic, sweating with the cold tea and the ice cubes inside. There were three of them sitting there after all, one of them already in Bobby’s hand. Jack wasted no time joining him. 

“Has Grandmom met Ennis?” 

Jack took a last swallow and set his tea down on the table to see Bobby looking anxious. “You haven’t met Ennis yet, not really.” But it did seem that he was ready for it now. “Bobby, meet Ennis Del Mar. Ennis, this is my son, Robert Lawrence Twist.” 

There was a pause, like the sun overhead stopped moving so it could look down and see what happened. What happened was that Ennis stuck out his hand, saying “That the famous basketball player?” sort of low and shy, but still being said. Jack could have kissed him for that, what must have taken some guts for him to come out with. 

There was another pause, but not long, only long enough for Jack to know he was going to be almighty disappointed in his son if he didn’t respond. But Bobby put out his hand and the two of them shook, brief but definite. 

“I’m not that good. Charlie’s better.”

Ennis gripped the big glass of tea with both hands, like he needed to. “He’s the boy you’ll be staying with?” 

“Yeah.” Bobby looked down to the grass growing around the table. Without fail, L.D. had it watered by the sprinkler system every night. “His mom’s a real good cook,” he said out of nowhere. 

“That so?’ 

Jack thought of maybe saying something, rescuing Ennis, but first Bobby came out with, “Dad says, like, you’re a real good cook too.” 

Jack did a good job of keeping his laughter bottled up, but he couldn’t believe Bobby had said that. 

Ennis wasn’t laughing, though. He plowed through the conversation like it was serious. “I don’t know why he’d think that, except he tends to like his food. I, uh…. My daughter used to come make Saturday dinner for me, and I watched. I bet he said something about the pork chops, didn’t he?” 

“Yeah, he did.” 

“Your dad likes pork chops. He’s not such a bad cook himself.” 

“I wouldn’t know. He never cooked when Mom was around.”

Bobby looked away, like a cloud had passed over that watching sun, casting its shadow. 

Jack saw how Ennis squared his shoulders. “I haven’t had the chance yet, to tell you how sorry I am that your mom passed.” 

“Yeah,” Bobby said, closed off now when he hadn’t been before.

“I was real glad I had the chance to meet her when I did.” 

“I guess.” 

Jack wouldn’t let things go downhill another inch. He jumped in and said, “It’s got to be past lunchtime. Anybody else hungry?” 

“Sure,” Bobby said. 

“How about we go get something? Dairy Queen, maybe. You like that, Ennis, don’t you?”

What Jack knew Ennis didn’t like was the three of them out eating in Childress, but they needed food, didn’t they? And Jack didn’t hear him coming up with any other idea. He told the two of them to sit tight and wait for him while he went and told Faye that, no, he wasn’t kidnapping Bobby so she’d never see him again, lost to the influence of the homosexuals, but they were only going to get some food and he’d have Bobby back in a while. Jack wasn’t crazy about leaving Ennis and Bobby alone, but maybe it’d be good, because they were going to need to get used to each other sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner. 

Jack went into the house through the back kitchen door. He was ready to call out “Faye?” but he didn’t need to, as she was right there opening the refrigerator. 

“Thanks for the tea,” he started out with. 

“You’re welcome,” she said like the gentle woman she’d been brought up to be. 

“We’re going to take Bobby out for lunch. I just wanted you to know.” 

It was almost like she’d been iced by the cool air; she was white when she turned and let the door close behind her. “Oh! Oh, Jack, I wish you wouldn’t. Please.” 

“Faye, we’ve been through this. He’s not going to come to any harm with me.” 

“Not with you, but…. That man. He’s not from around here.” 

What the hell did she think was going to happen? “Bobby’ll be okay,” he said.

“He’s who I think he is, isn’t he? The one Lureen told us about, that you’re living with.” 

In the face of her fear, her eyes wide, Jack actually felt a moment of sympathy. He moved over to the kitchen table, hands on the back of one of the chairs, the one that Bobby had always sat in when they’d come to visit. “That’s Ennis Del Mar, yes, who I’ve known for a long time. My partner, Faye.” 

“I wish you wouldn’t go. L.D. will be furious that Bobby’s been out with that man. He’ll be furious he’s been here at all.” 

“Then why the…why’d you bring us the drinks?”

She looked away from him and grabbed a dishtowel, went over to the counter by the sink, and began to dry a dish from the drainer. “I couldn’t let Bobby and you get heat stroke, could I? I heard all the commotion outside and looked down from the upstairs window. And I promised Lureen.” 

“L.D. promised Lureen too. Look, it’s lunchtime and Bobby’s hungry. You don’t need to tell anybody anything.” 

“No, wait. Why don’t…why don’t I make you something? I’ve got all this food left over from yesterday.” 

His ex-mother-in-law was caught between a rock and a hard place, and Jack could see it was pinching her something awful. Any way she looked at it, L.D. was going to have a fit because Ennis was here, but she must’ve thought it was better to keep the three of them under her watchful eye than to let them out where they could be seen by others. But this way, Ennis would be eased, not eating out. 

“Okay,” Jack said. Then, “That’s mighty kind of you,” even though he didn’t really think that.

“You can eat outside on the table,” she said, ruining whatever good will Jack might’ve been able to muster. Of course, she wouldn’t want Ennis in her house. “You can put up the umbrella. It’s over in the corner.”

When Jack went back outside, he found the two men in his life standing pretty much the way he’d left them, and he doubted they’d said much while he was gone. He fixed that by telling them they’d be eating courtesy of the leftovers. Then he asked Bobby what show the band would be putting on at the football halftimes this year. That was something the boy was always ready to talk about. 

Jack was fitting the umbrella into the hole in the glass table top and Ennis was fetching the lawn chairs that were lined up by the wall when Bobby came back from returning the basketball to the garage. “Dad,” he said, “I can go back to school tomorrow, can’t I?”

Jack shoved the umbrella base an inch to the left with his foot, then seated the pole. “You want to?”

“Yeah, I do. Unless…. Unless you think it’s too soon after Mom…. I don’t want to do something that’s wrong to her.”

“You mean her memory? Like there’s some special time you need to be mourning?”

“Right. I’m missing a lot of work in class, and my friends are there, and the band keeps going, but if you think it’s not right….”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Then can I go to band practice this afternoon?”

He guessed this was healthy, that the boy wanted to get back into the flow of life after it had been interrupted by things everybody feared. It was the same way Jack couldn’t wait to get into the Ram and drive west with Ennis next to him, back to the life they both wanted and had fought for. 

“I don’t see why not,” Jack said. 

“Great. Then would you drive me over to our house? That way I can get my car and get to practice without bothering anybody, and I can drive myself to school tomorrow.” 

“We can do that. We’ll need to take Ennis’s truck, all three of us, because that piece of shit rental car I was driving died on me yesterday.” He reached up under the folds of the umbrella, searching for the crank to get it open. 

There were a couple of seconds while he cranked and the shade grew over the table, and then Bobby said, “That’s okay, I need my car. Listen, when do I get to move to Charlie’s? How about this afternoon? You and Ennis could get my stuff while I’m at -- ”

“Whoa, son. Wait a minute. I haven’t even talked to Rose and Dan yet. We haven’t made any arrangements.” 

“Dad….”

“You really don’t want to stay here?”

“Hell, no. With the way Granddad was acting yesterday, hollering, and the things I know he’s going to say about you as soon as he gets the chance, I’d rather be gone.”

Jack double-checked to make sure the umbrella was up as high as it would go and then found that a chair was being pressed against the back of his knees. 

“Sit down, bud,” Ennis said, so he did. He picked up his glass but it was empty. 

Ennis sat down across from him. “Might be the best thing is to get Bobby moved as soon as we can.” 

“What, just show up on the doorstep with a load of furniture and stuff, without giving them any notice? Plus I’ve got things I need to take care of this afternoon, you know. I need to see the lawyer about that trust Lureen set up and maybe open up a bank account. I don’t know what else.”

“Then how about tomorrow?” Ennis suggested

“Yeah, Dad, tomorrow would work.”

“Not if you’re at school, it won’t. We need you to figure out what you want to bring over.” He could see how Bobby didn’t want to deal with going into the house but knew he had to. 

“Okay. I’ll skip school tomorrow if you can get me moved.”

“That sounds good, if it’s okay with the Montcriefs. I’ll check with them later on today.” 

After that, nobody seemed to have anything else to say. Jack sat there, waiting for Faye to bring out the food. Or maybe she’d call him into the kitchen to get it, not wanting to come close to what was out here, something strange and threatening to how she understood the world. 

At least they were in the shade, and he was cooling off. He’d have to shower and change clothes before he went to see the lawyer. No way was he going in stinking.

Jack let his gaze rest on Bobby, who was flicking at a ladybug with his finger, nudging it first one way on the table and then another. All in all, the boy had done pretty well this day. Like Ennis’s girls, he was finding a way to take this whole thing on, and maybe there was a future for them, father and son.

He felt proud of Bobby, but maybe not proud of himself. He loved his son, only not enough to ask him to come live with them. Not that he’d say yes, Jack consoled himself, but still…. He’d made his choice, though, and that was the way it was, the way he’d decided to live his life with Ennis at the center. Which, at the same time, in a strange way was with himself at the center. The guilt for it would probably always be with him, like the way he’d always feel guilt about Lureen.

But the gamble to talk to Bobby with the truth not doctored up, to bring Ennis in on him right away, looked like maybe it’d paid off. Maybe he should pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, but if he was, why in hell would he want to wake up? Ennis sitting across the table from his son, all three of them together, and home waiting for him in Eagle Nest. Maybe tomorrow they could go home. That’d be good. 

One of the yellow butterflies that he’d seen down on the trail landed on the rim of Bobby’s glass, no doubt attracted by the leftover moisture. Jack watched it because there wasn’t anything else to do. He half expected Bobby to shoo it away or maybe make a grab for it. But he didn’t, so the three of them sat there, waiting for it to take off. It stayed on the rim a long time, until Faye called for him to come get the food.

*****

Ennis dropped Jack off across from the courthouse, in front of the lawyer’s office. “You be careful,” Ennis said as Jack got out. 

“In a lawyer’s office?” Jack asked with a grin that said maybe he thought Ennis was acting like some woman, over-worried about her kid crossing the street. “I think I’ll be safe there.”

“Come on, Jack, you know what I mean. Ain’t no funeral going on any more to protect you.” 

“You are such a worrywart. Listen, I’ll be careful, okay? I promise.”

Ennis grunted. “See that you are.” He put the truck back in gear and barely checked the traffic before pulling out. He thought mighty high on Jack Twist, but if he didn’t get some time away by himself he was gonna explode or something. The way Jack’s mother-in-law had looked at him pressed heavily on him. He hadn’t expected anything different and had done his best not to let on how he felt. His foot pressed on the accelerator as if the truck could take him away from Faye thinking he was scum of the earth. For a good two blocks if any cop had been looking he would have gotten another ticket for sure, racing around where honest folks were doing business. 

He slowed at a crosswalk and kept his speed down after that, because it was no good anyway. Nothing could take him away from the truth of him and Jack. There was no way he wanted to go down that road again anyway. He’d had it with turning his eyes, and his thoughts, and his whole way of living away from the way things really were. And there was nothing he could do to change the thinking of old ladies, show them what it’d taken him almost forty years to get into his thick head. So what was the use? Even so, she’d burned him. It felt like she’d put a mark on him with her looking alone. It was hard to live through that, and to know the boy had seen it too.

Ennis stopped at the last red light before the town opened up to the land, and he loosened the death grip he had on the steering wheel. He would just need to forget, right? It wasn’t like Faye Newsome counted. She didn’t, not really. Though for long years it had seemed just about everybody counted to him one way or the other, the way they looked at him, the way they maybe talked. 

Ennis took a breath, reminding himself. There weren’t really many people who counted, not when it came down to it. Jack. Junior and Jenny. He supposed he should start including Bobby, but only cause he was important to Jack. 

That meeting with Bobby, he didn’t know how he could have changed it or made it any better by anything he said or did. He’d shook hands with the kid and let him take his measure, and Ennis had tried not to imagine how he was thought of. It couldn’t be good, but it was clear Jack’s son was willing to give his dad a chance. That seemed to include not turning his back on Ennis. He was a good kid, not like some of those hoodlums who’d lived in the apartment complex back in Canyon. He still remembered the night they’d ganged up on him, surrounded him in the parking lot, and said those things about being queer. Bobby wasn’t like those kids, but that didn’t mean things with him would be all right. He wondered if Jack saw that. 

The light turned green, and Ennis started up again. There’d been a gas station he’d noticed yesterday to the east, where the town folk weren’t likely to go. He could fill his tank there. After that he could go back to the motel and put his feet up, since the basketball game hadn’t done his sore ankle any good. He drove on, not looking around, letting the road take him, and letting the hum of the tires surround him. 

What a day. Months ago back in Amarillo, Jack had said they could live quietly, which is what Ennis wanted, but if this was quiet he didn’t want to see loud. Jack whipsawing him one way and then another, mixing up the good and the bad feelings inside him. He was dizzy trying to make sense of them. Jack and the foreman -- three and a half long years, damn it to hell and back again. He never should have asked the tough questions and had only himself to blame. It bothered him bad, knowing that Randall Malone had taken Jack out fishing. And then there was Mexico and a street that had known Jack too well. Three times in one goddamned year, with him having no clue that Jack was carrying on. He didn’t think Jack understood how deeply hurt he felt on it and how those men even got into Ennis’s dreams. Now Randall Malone had shown a face to fit in his nightmares, though he wished he’d never seen it. 

But at the same time that he couldn’t seem to take his mind away from any of that, there were the fine feelings, rising up on a morning he’d not likely forget because of the good, not the bad. Those feelings had come up so strong that even now, hours later, Ennis felt them tingling inside, enough to make the skin on the back of his hands come alive. Huh. Saying _I love you_ in Childress, Texas, now that was something to surprise a man. Hearing it said back too….

Automatically, he checked the rearview mirror for the car behind him, but there was only a woman wearing a scarf, driving along minding her own business, no threat to him and his. 

Ennis looked at his Timex and saw that it was two o’clock. By now Jack must be in the lawyer’s office. He hoped Jack was being careful, cause after all that was L.D.’s lawyer. No place around here felt safe to Ennis. He had to rely on Jack promising he’d keep his eyes open. 

Promising. Him and Jack. The way Jack looked with water pouring on him, his hair slicked down, his eyes glowing in that Jack-way that Ennis kept close to his heart. They had promises between them, didn’t they? These last few days, the last few hours, sure had brought that home to him. They’d not been spoken aloud, but they were there anyway in how him and Jack were doing things, in between _What food should I buy at the grocery store?_ and _I’ll pick you up soon as you call me at the motel._ In between _You want a beer?_ and _This is my son, Robert Lawrence Twist._ Those promises not spoken of had been part of what had brought him here.

He hadn’t figured on any of this back when he’d moved into the house on Prospect Drive. He couldn’t have guessed that living with Jack would be more like what living with Alma should have been than just two guys shacking up. It was proving to be so. There was nothing Ennis could do against it, not if he wanted to stay in this life. And he sure did, fancy foreman and maybe-donkey-dong be damned.

It took another five minutes before he reached the gas station, a country place with a two bay garage attached to a sorry-looking store. There was a late model Chevy in one of the bays, where some mechanic had his head stuck in the open engine. Besides him and a lazy dog on a chain under a tree, nobody was stirring. Ennis pulled up next to one of the two pumps outside, killed his engine, and got out to unscrew the truck’s gas cap. He hadn’t even got the gas flowing yet when a 1983 Silverado pulled up on the other side of where he was. Ennis tensed, not wanting trouble, ready for it anyway, but think-of-the-devil Randall Malone got out of the cab, his moves so smooth. 

_He was there when nobody else was, including you._ Jack had said that.

A whole lot of mad flared up fast. Each time he’d smashed a fucker in the mouth came roaring back to Ennis’s mind, and he knew how good it would feel to do that to this dickhead, who’d had his man. 

_Christalmighty, Jack. Why’d you do what you did? You didn’t even have high feelings for him. You said that, no love, not like what we’ve got…._

Ennis’s fingers curled into a fist around the handle of the pump. It had been hard enough to deal with Malone at the viewing, and harder to shake his hand, but there wasn’t any reason to play nice now. It’d be the easiest fight he’d ever have, sucker-punching this faggot who’d got into Jack’s pants.

But….flattening his nose wouldn’t change what Jack had done with this guy. It was fixed in stone, like a lot of other things in the world. Ennis forced himself to stay where he was, jamming the nozzle into the opening of the tank and squeezing until the gas came flowing out. He had to take this, cause what Jack had done with Randall Malone came with Jack. There wasn’t any separating possible. It was just the way things were.

Ennis concentrated on the numbers whirling, getting higher. Jack and him, they’d be leaving soon. It couldn’t be soon enough to suit Ennis.

Nobody said anything for a good while, with no sounds of moving coming from the other side. But then the man that Jack had gone sneaking around with walked over to where Ennis was, stopped three feet from the Ram’s bumper, and said, “Afternoon, Del Mar. I wasn’t expecting to find you here.” 

“Malone,” Ennis said. The gas was coming out too slowly for his liking. He jerked on the handle and pulled on it more. 

“How’s Jack doing?” At least the man had the sense to keep his voice low.

“Okay.”

“I didn’t have a chance to talk to him privately yesterday. He seemed pretty cut up at the funeral though.”

He glanced over at Malone, whose ordinary work clothes were jeans with a sharp crease to them, whose boots maybe had been shined the night before, and whose hat cost more than Ennis wanted to pay for a hat. It seemed Malone felt like he had some right to know about Jack, part of him being a big man. Well, Jack could flap his lips at this fella and the coach and anybody else he wanted to, and there was nothing Ennis could do to stop him, they’d come to that understanding, but Ennis was more like to guard Jack’s business than Jack was himself. “He’ll be all right,” he said, not giving anything more. Nobody had rights over Jack but the one man Jack had given them to, and that was him. 

Malone looked toward the road and then came back to Ennis. His eyes were cautious. “I was surprised when he left town.”

 _I bet you were,_ Ennis thought. _You thought you’d have your good deal going for years, didn’t you, you and the fishing trips, Jack lifting his --_

“I couldn’t believe it when Jack told me what he was going to do. You know, find somebody and live with them. It’s dangerous. I’ve been worried about him.”

What did Malone think, that they were two women who needed looking after, that Jack and him didn’t have the sense they were born with? “There’s no need,” Ennis said, some of his mad coming out, and surprising himself by what he could say to this guy. 

Malone gave a laugh that told he thought differently. “You two have really been doing it, though, living together in the open? I can hardly believe it.”

Ennis shrugged. “Wouldn’t do it here.”

“Hell, no, but anywhere…. I’d never do that. I value my neck.” 

Ennis eyed the man, who he thought had money and easy ways, and undoubtedly had seen a lot of the world. “You think I don’t care about Jack’s neck? We’re doing okay.” 

“You haven’t had any trouble?”

Not all that many people knew of his and Jack’s circumstances, but some did. And after months of living in Eagle Nest, it seemed that more people didn’t care enough to find out. If Jack and him could only manage to quit themselves of Texas, that quiet life they’d been leading was really there -- at least quiet compared to this hellhole with sons, and mothers-in-laws, and old lovers. “No trouble so far,” Ennis said.

“Maybe New Mexico’s different. Jack’s not…. Here for the funeral, he isn’t being open, is he? Since I’m still living here, I wouldn’t want….”

The tank filled at last with a loud click. Ennis took his time pulling the nozzle out and putting it back, taking up the cap and screwing it back on. “You don’t have anything to worry about. Jack’s no fool.” 

“No, he never was,” Malone said, sort of distantly, like he was remembering things. “He’s…he’s okay. You’re lucky to be with him.” 

Lucky? If Ennis had been a different kind of man, he would have laughed at Randall Malone. Luck had never sat on his shoulder. It had been twenty years of being stubborn and being stupid, followed by months of turning himself inside out that had led to being with Jack. It had been Jack being brave enough to give him a second chance even after all the hurt Ennis had laid on him that had led to them being together. There wasn’t any luck in sight, just Ennis finally seeing what they had and both of them going after it, even if it meant living more or less in the open, even though it meant standing here talking to a man who Jack had fucked and who’d fucked Jack. What him and Jack had was worth putting up with that, something that this Randall fellow didn’t know anything of. 

For a second, the way Ennis regarded the shithead turned itself upside down, and he felt sorry for the guy. 

But no way would he let on. He turned his shoulder and went toward the store, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket as he walked. 

Nobody was at the register. He went into the service bay where the mechanic was wiping his hands on an oily cloth. The utility light shining into the open hood threw shadows in the place, but there was enough to make out the guy’s face as he turned and asked, “Yeah? What can I do for you?”

Ennis stopped dead in his tracks, a twenty dollar bill in his hand, and his heart slammed up into his throat. It was Jerry, the stringy, older guy who’d stood next to Duncan last February, ready to beat up him and Jack, or worse, if they could get away with it. One of the faggot-haters.

But though Ennis sure knew who he was, it seemed that Jerry didn’t know him. He looked at Ennis like he was any other customer. Maybe he’d bashed in so many heads that he couldn’t keep track of them. Ennis tried to swallow down his fear. 

“Uh, come to pay for the gas,” he said, his lips barely moving. He wanted to stare down at the dirty cement floor, but he needed to keep his eyes on this guy. 

“What’s that you said? Oh, gas. Sure. Come on.” 

Jerry led the way back to where the register was by the store’s front door and rang him up. If Ennis didn’t know what he knew, he’d say he was ordinary, probably handy with engines, the kind of man who would come with his tow truck and get you out of a ditch if you’d had too much on a Friday night -- and not let on to the wife if you greased his palm with something extra. 

Ennis mumbled his thanks as the change was put into his hand, trying not to touch or get touched, wanting to get away as fast as he could, to go far away from this man who if he only knew…. He turned away without even putting the money in his wallet, clutched it in his hand and walked straight back to the Ram, got in and turned the ignition. But Randall Malone was still there pouring gas into his outsized tanks, delayed cause he’d stopped to talk to Ennis and ask about Jack. Ennis looked through his windshield at where he could see Malone, who lifted a hand half-heartedly, not knowing…. 

Should he do it? Those fishing trips to Lake Kemp, they stuck in his gut like broken glass, but he bet…he bet Jack had looked forward to those. This Randy guy. Jack said he’d been all about good times. Good-time Randy. But Jack hadn’t loved him. Ennis had Jack now, and would keep having him for the rest of that man’s whole life, until they were both old and gray and could hardly even remember getting their dicks up. Even then Jack would have his smile and his blue eyes, and he’d understand Ennis when nobody else in the whole world would. He would have Jack, and Randall Malone wouldn’t. 

Ennis glanced toward the station, but Jerry wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Was he maybe hiding, waiting…. No, there he was, coming around the back, aimed for the open hood of the car again. Ennis waited half a minute while the only thing he saw was Jerry’s butt. Then he opened his truck door and went around to where Randall was still pumping gas. 

“Gotta tell you. The guy who works here, his name’s Jerry. You watch out for him.”

“Watch out? What -- ” 

“He’s got it out for…” Ennis took in air. “For guys like you. Us. Him and his son and some guy named Duncan came on Jack and me last winter on the road not far from here. They would’ve tried to kill us if a trooper hadn’t come along.”

Malone had gone still, his hand slack on the handle of the pump where no gas was going through the nozzle anymore. “How’d they know….”

Ennis shook his head. “I don’t know. But they knew Jack’s that way, so…. Since you and him….” Christ, this wasn’t easy to get out. “Since you and him were…. Could be they saw you together. I wouldn’t come here for gas anymore.” 

“Shit,” Malone breathed. “I…. Thanks.” 

Ennis nodded and turned away. He got back into the Ram quickly, one big knot of worry and ready to roar out of there, to roar out of Texas. Jack was a damn sight safer in Eagle Nest living with him, where Ennis had his back and he had Ennis’s back, than Randall Malone was living here, alone and fearful, with his loud-mouth wife and their kids. He drove off without looking back, hoping never to see either one of those guys again.

****

The phone didn’t ring at three o’clock, not five minutes later either. It wasn’t until the clock clicked over to three-eleven that it jangled in Ennis’s ear as he sat watching afternoon TV from the motel bed. He was still shaken up after facing Jerry. His thoughts were full of all the bad things that could have happened to him and could be happening to Jack. Hearing Jack’s voice went a long ways to calming him. Jack said he was done, and could Ennis come get him outside the bank. Ennis couldn’t get to the truck fast enough.

Ennis pulled up to the curb as Jack talked to some woman. She glanced at Ennis without much interest. Jack tipped his hat to her, and she turned away. 

“Who was that?” Ennis asked as Jack got into the passenger seat. He figured no woman was a threat to them, but it was better to make sure.

“Bobby’s old third grade teacher. She works for the bail bondsman now. She says hello to you, by the way.”

Ennis about yanked the gear shift right out of its base. “What?”

Jack chuckled. “I’m just kidding, you nut.”

Ennis threw him a look that should have killed him, or at least shut him up. “Shithead.”

That just bounced off Jack. He seemed to be in a fine humor. “Sometimes,” he said, looking out the window like they were about to go on a Sunday drive.

“I guess everything went okay with the lawyer?” Ennis asked. This time he checked the mirror before pulling out, but there wasn’t much traffic in the middle of the afternoon. 

“Yep. The trust is set up separately from the stuff in the will, and things are ready to go. I called the Montcriefs and talked to Rose, so we’re set to move Bobby tomorrow. I talked to Faye and let her know that’s what we’re planning to do. She wasn’t too pleased, let me tell you.”

Now that the truck was moving down the street and Jack was safe beside him, Ennis felt better all ways. It was probably okay to relax some here with Jack, cause nobody was gonna jump out of a truck bed at them. Ennis double-checked in the rearview mirror. And that man crossing the street half a block ahead of them wasn’t a threat; he could hear Jack saying that to him, if he was to know what was going on in his thoughts. 

“I bet her and L.D. want Bobby to stay with them,” he said.

“That’s right, but it’s not happening. So, where are we going now?”

“You tell me. I’m just your driver taking orders. What else do we need to do today?”

Jack took off his hat, put it on the seat between them, and stretched like a cat in the summer sun, his palms going flat against the top of the cab. “Nothing,” he said with real satisfaction. “Nothing more to do until tomorrow. We’re free as birds right now.”

“Yeah?” Ennis sent the Ram west onto the highway.

Jack turned to him with a smile. “Yeah. How about a drink? I sure could use one.” 

A drink right now sounded about perfect, except…. “Where’s a bar around here?”

“There’s a good one out this way, not far. The Sportsman’s Lodge. I used to go there now and then.”

Ennis kept his eyes on the road, thinking. He was sure ready for something normal, and ready to be more with Jack the way he seemed to be right now, letting go of his sadness for Lureen and his worry over Bobby. But now that Jerry had seen Ennis…. Who knew when he’d stand up straight of a sudden and think _Hey, I remember that guy._ This Sportsman’s Lodge was probably the kind of place mechanics went to. 

“Okay, let’s head out for a drink. It’s been a hell of a day.”

“What, meeting Bobby took it all out of you?” Jack kidded him.

The words came out without him taking the time to think on them. “No, watching you this morning try to make that moustache of yours look presentable was more than I could take. Why do you keep that thing, anyway?”

Jack didn’t look like the kind of man who was holding on to his face fuzz cause of thoughts on his old buddy-with-a-beard. Instead, Jack looked like the kid who’d been caught sneaking food to the barn dog. “Ah, geez. You really want to know?”

“Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

“It’s my Mama.” 

“Your Mama?” A warm feeling stole through his stomach. That was just like Jack. “You haven’t seen her in a while.”

“I know, and I’ve got to go visit her soon. She says it reminds her of old time movie stars from when she was a kid.” Jack flipped down the passenger side visor to look at himself in the little mirror there. “Besides, I like it. That’s the second time you’ve mentioned it today. You want me to get rid of it?”

“It’s your face, not mine.”

“But you’re the one who has to look at it.”

“I probably wouldn’t recognize you if you shaved it off.” 

“You know, I think you should grow a moustache too.” 

Ennis took a couple seconds before he growled, “Like hell.”

Jack gave him a thoughtful look. “If you did, I think you’d look like Errol Flynn.”

“What, that guy in the old Robin Hood movie? You got something for old movie stars like your mama does?”

“You can always shave it off if you don’t like it.” 

“Did you knock your head on something, talking to the lawyer?”

Jack laughed outright and slouched back against the seat, but then he was up again reaching for the air conditioner controls. “If you think I’m going to bake in this truck just because you are made of ice, you are wrong, wrong.” 

“It saves on gas,” Ennis defended. 

“Fine, you sweat like a pig to save gas, but when I’m in the truck I see no sense in not putting the AC on.” 

Already blasts of cold air were coming out of the vents. “Pansy ass,” Ennis said, even though cooling off felt pretty good. 

The truck flashed past the motel row where they’d been staying, and Jack told him the bar was a couple more miles. When they got to it, the place looked okay for working men at the end of the day, and there were four pick-ups in the lot. But Ennis didn’t even slow down. 

“Hey,” Jack said, turning around to watch the bar go by. “That was it.”

“I know,” Ennis said. 

“Why didn’t you -- ”

“We’re not going there.” 

“I’ve got to tell you, there’s not another bar unless you go back to -- ”

“We’re going a ways farther on.”

“Farther on? Then there’s not another bar until we’re practically to Amarillo.”

“That’s pretty much what I had in mind.” 

“What?” Jack squawked. “Why should we go two hours when we can get a drink right here? I don’t -- ”

“Jack,” Ennis said with a sigh. Some places were just dangerous. The place where Jack had paraded around right under the noses of the tire-iron-men, that bar was one of them. It was probably where he’d caught their eye in the first place. “I saw one of those guys. You know, from last February. The one named Jerry.” 

That shut Jack up for a bit. “You’re kidding. He works way out at -- ”

“Yeah, at a gas station.”

“What the hell were you -- What happened?”

Ennis checked both outside mirrors, but traffic was light with the closest car way behind them. “Nothing. He didn’t know me, I hope, though I sure knew him.”

“Ennis, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you not to go out there.” 

“Yeah, you should’ve. But I guess we’ve had other things on our minds. It seems like we haven’t had time to breathe since I’ve been here. Why don’t you tell me now, where does Duncan work?” 

“He’s a plumber, so he makes house calls all over the county. And I don’t know where Jerry’s son works, or where any of them live. Are you sure he didn’t recognize you?”

“Nah. I handed him money for gas and he took it, no problems. I left after I saw your good-time Randy.”

Jack did a genuine double-take. “What?” 

“I met him at the gas station too.” 

“Holy shit! It’s not safe to let you out of my sight. What happened with you and him?” 

From the tone of his voice, it seemed Jack feared the worst, and Ennis took some pleasure out of proving Jack wrong. 

“We talked some.”

“That’s all? What’d you talk about?”

“How you’re tough to put up with and damn annoying, what else do you think we might’ve said?” Except they might’ve talked on Jack’s fucking style, a thought that flashed so quickly in and out of Ennis’s brain that he was able to deny to himself that he even thought it.

“Come on, tell me.”

“He said he was worried about you, and I told him not to bother, that you and me together have things covered. Then I told him about Jerry, and not to get gas there anymore. That’s it. Okay?”

“Okay, okay. I guess I…guess I see why you don’t want to stop at the Sportsman.”

Besides the fact that Jack had probably gone there with Malone? For all Ennis knew, he’d picked up strangers there to have sex with too, cause one time back in Amarillo Jack had as good as said he’d done that, that he’d lost caution the last years cause he’d been downhearted over him and Ennis…. Huh. Guess fishing trips with Malone weren’t enough to scratch that itch. Maybe he thought Ennis had forgotten what he’d said, but he hadn’t, and he wouldn’t. But not-forgetting was one thing, and not-letting-go was another. He’d managed not to punch Malone, hadn’t he?

“There’s a place in Amarillo right on 45,” Ennis said, “by that steak restaurant we went to, remember? I thought we’d go there.”

“Shit. That’s a long way for some booze.” But Jack sat back, moved his seat back using the control on the side, and stretched out his legs.

“You implying you don’t want to be cooped up with me for the time it takes to get there?”

The Ram’s tires ate up a full mile before Jack answered him. “The man I most want to be marooned on a desert island with,” Jack said, slow and sort of dreamy. “Ennis Del Mar.” 

Ennis wasn’t the kind of man who blushed, but he felt heat flow anyway. He thought of saying the same back, cause it was surely true, but then, Jack knew. After another mile had passed he said, “I guess you and me are going back to Amarillo, then.” 

Jack smiled. “I guess we are.”

*****

The Buckle Lounge was a ramshackle place that looked like it could be blown down by the force of all the traffic rushing by on the interstate. It was a truck driver’s dive if Ennis had ever seen one, with five eighteen wheelers rumbling their diesel engines in the parking lot and the drivers, some of them teams, sitting at the bar knocking back tall ones. He walked into the dimness with Jack, and Ennis felt that knot inside him come undone some more, what had started to feel better when Jack stepped in the pick-up. He took comfort from the booze smells that wrinkled his nose, the stains on the floor, the old neon clock over the bar, the blaring of the jukebox, and the way there were no windows. No windows kept the outside world out, with Jerry and Duncan and fuck knew who else, and this inside world all on its own. 

“Can I get you gents some whiskey?” a waitress asked them. She was a rough-looking fifty with boobs hanging low and floppy-sad under her white blouse; she looked like she’d seen everything. She’d probably done everything. 

Jack looked at him across the little table where they’d sat down. “I drank a lot of the hard stuff in San Antone,” he said, taking off his hat and hooking it on the third chair. 

Ennis let one side of his mouth quirk in half a grimace. “I finished off a bottle or two myself. Tired of the taste of it. I don’t feel like whiskey anymore.”

“Me neither. Ma’am, you got any Heineken?”

“Nope. We’ve got Bud on draft, and Miller.” 

“Give me a Bud,” Jack said.

Ennis had got in the habit of drinking Corona, and blamed Jack, as he’d introduced him to that brew. But he said, “Bud here too.” 

*****

Two pool tables that had seen better days were tucked into the back of the Buckle Lounge. After they’d put away a few beers, Ennis found his way over there, and not much later Jack followed. Jack racked the balls, Ennis broke, and they played friendly games, over and over. Jack might shoot baskets better than he did, but Ennis was still the man with the cue stick. 

Jack was bent over a shot -- five ball in the side pocket -- when he said, “I’ve always wanted a pool table of my own.” He shot and drained the ball.

He straightened, looked over the balls left on the felt, and turned to Ennis, who was standing right behind him. “How about we get one of these?” he asked.

Ennis darted his eyes around to see if anybody was close enough to hear them talking. It felt like he was being real daring, jumping off a bridge, when he said, “The only room big enough is in back, and I don’t want to give up the space there.”

“I didn’t mean now. Someday. Sooner or later we’ll move and get you a better place for the horses. Maybe we can find a house with a room for us to play pool in.” 

Ennis picked up the chalk cube from the side of the table. He applied it to his stick so it’d be ready to go when it was his turn. “Okay.” Someday maybe next year, maybe years from now. Sounded good.

*****

Him and Jack were back at the table drinking. Jack blinked in the dim light and talked over the noise of the jukebox. “Good-time Randy? Where the hell did you come up with that?” 

Ennis took a last swig and held up his finger toward the bartender for another bucket. This wasn’t a place that counted beers, and Ennis sure wasn’t doing it. Fuck, he felt good, every tight muscle in his body loosening, like after…well, like after a good fuck. He squinted across at Jack, narrowing his view of that man until he almost disappeared, and then opening his eyes again until he saw him fully.

“What’s it to you, huh?” he asked. 

“You’ve got a funny way with words, Del Mar.”

“Nothing compared to the way you talk, Twist. You should’ve been a politician in Washington.”

Jack seemed to like that idea. He lounged back in his chair, one arm flung over the back. “Senator Twist, that’s me.” 

“More like President,” Ennis growled. “You could sell peace to the Russians. Why don’t you try it?” 

When Jack Twist smiled, nobody could narrow their view of him. He took up the whole room.

*****

Ennis could tell that he’d be washed away pretty soon, so maybe it was time to get something to eat. He held up his watch to the light and saw it was nine-forty-five. The hell. 

They threw some dollars down on the table and found their way outside, where it was dark if you didn’t count the headlights coming and going or the big streetlights. Down the block was a sign that read _Copper Kettle._

“That looks good,” Jack said. 

Ennis ordered a hamburger with fries. Jack wanted pot roast with mashed potatoes. The food tasted sort of plastic, but Ennis didn’t care. Best fucking day. 

Outside again, he pulled out the cigarettes he’d bought at the bar, cause neither one of them were quitting them this night. He lit one for Jack without being asked, then one for himself, and they stood under the overhang of the restaurant entrance, listening to the sounds of the city. 

Ennis blew out smoke. “Amarillo,” he said. 

“I’ve come to appreciate it.” Jack flicked ash onto the sidewalk. “Glad we didn’t stay here though.” 

Ennis sort of hummed around his cigarette, that he thought so too. Then he took it out of his mouth and said, “We should think about getting back. Got to play moving van tomorrow.” 

“I don’t want to go back yet. A couple more beers, okay?”

Ennis didn’t need to be asked twice. He turned his steps toward the bar, feeling the hot breeze stirred up by the traffic, a reminder that he was in Texas, where it never really cooled off in the summertime. He glanced at Jack walking next to him. He seemed to be trying to whistle, if that tuneless sound coming from his lips was any indication. Ennis could teach him a thing or two about whistling. He’d get around to it eventually.

*****

Some considerable time later another trucker team came into the Buckle, only this time it was a man and a woman. Ennis guessed she was his wife. She looked enough like a man in her rough clothes that Jack whispered in his ear, “Is that a guy or a gal?” They sat together up by the bar and each ordered a Miller. Ennis wondered what that must be like, working closely with the one you were attached to. 

The other drivers didn’t seem to care about the woman; the talk went on like it had all the time Ennis had been there. Right now they were going on about the regulators that some truck companies were putting on the rigs, making sure the drivers couldn’t go over a certain speed. They didn’t like being held back like that. Ennis picked up his smoke from the ashtray and thought about not being able to go full throttle. 

Across the table, Jack snickered, with the devil in his eyes, along with six hours of Bud. 

“What?” Ennis asked.

Jack leaned in as close as he could. “We’ve never had regulators on the two of us.”

Wasn’t that the truth. Ennis felt the stirring of his dick, but it was far, far away, with an ocean of beer between thinking of sex with the good-looker across from him and actually doing the deed. “You’re always going a hundred miles a hour,” he said. 

“That’s not me, that’s you. There’s no brake in you once you get going.” 

“No sense in stopping.”

“Sometimes there is, go at it nice and slow, easy like. Want to show you that someday, you give me the chance.” 

Ennis wanted to say something back that would keep the Jack-light on, but he saw the been-there waitress headed their way and kept his mouth shut. Not hard to do, unless he was kissing Jack Twist’s lips, or his dick. 

*****

“No,” Jack said, with his hands on his hips, stubborn as a mule. The single high light that brightened the whole Buckle Lounge parking lot shone on Jack’s face, making him look either like an angel or some real sick person who should be in the hospital. Ennis wasn’t sure which. 

But he was sure of one thing. “We’ve got that room at the motel waiting on us,” Ennis explained a second time. It all seemed clear as could be to him. “We’ve gotta go back.”

“You are drunk, Ennis Del Mar.”

“So?”

“And I’m not any better.” 

“There ain’t never been a time I ain’t been able to get myself home from a bar, and this ain’t gonna be the first.” 

“Lureen will kill us.” 

“Jack,” Ennis said patiently, talking to an idiot. “Lureen can’t kill us, she’s dead.” 

Jack swayed, and Ennis put out his hands so he wouldn’t topple over. Only thing was, Ennis wasn’t all that steady either. “Hey there, bud,” he said as his knee bent before he could stop it from doing that.

“No,” Jack said with a shake of his head. He pulled away and stood up on his own again. “I promised Lureen I’d never drive when I’ve had more than seven or eight drinks, and she promised me if I did she’d kill me. She liked you, Ennis, so she’d kill you too. We can’t drive back. It’s more than two hours away.” 

“How you know we’ve had more’n seven or eight drinks?” Ennis challenged. 

“You shithead. Look over there, there’s a motel past the restaurant. Let’s go there.” 

Jack started walking, splashing through a puddle that must’ve been made by some truck dripping on the blacktop, but Ennis went after him. “No way,” he said. “I’ve got a room I’m already paying for. You’ve gone crazy, Jack, thinking we’re millionaires that we can pay for two rooms in one night?” 

Real fast, Jack turned around. Or it seemed real fast to Ennis, anyway. He grabbed Ennis by the front of his shirt and pulled him close. Ennis could smell the booze fumes coming from his mouth, and his eyes looked so wide an airplane could’ve flown through them. 

“Lureen will never forgive me if we end up in a ditch,” Jack said, serious as a judge. “She’d bitch at me in heaven for the rest of eternity for killing us both. Think on it, Ennis. Her voice nagging at me for the next billion years.” He let Ennis go and staggered back. “You willing to risk that?”

“Ah, crap.” Ennis looked straight up at the sky, up and up, stretching his neck back until all the stars that there were to see were in his sight. There wasn’t any Lureen there, but he sure imagined her, looking down with lines creased between her eyes as she frowned at them, probably right next to god and Santa Claus.

The stars spun around, and he was reminded of another time that they’d been important to him. He’d been drunk then too. After that night nothing had been the same, cause the stars had told him it wasn’t the worst thing to be queer, and that him and Jack were all right. 

All right? They were better than all right! They were back on the right road, not looking back any more. “Okay.” He started walking.

“Hey, wait up!” 

*****

Shit.

Fuck.

Ennis cracked an eye open and then closed it as fast as he could.

Shit.

From the other side of the room, somebody moaned. That Jack Twist, he never had been able to hold his liquor like Ennis could. 

He felt so bad, he might as well go back to sleep.

*****

“Oh, damn.” 

That’s what woke him up again, Jack saying that in a weary sort of way. Ennis stayed flat on his back and listened to some rustlings coming from the other bed, some groans, and then it sounded like Jack had managed to stand up. Some scratching sounds came to him. 

“Christopher Columbus.” 

Ennis turned his head on the pillow with some effort. What was that Jack had said? 

“Shit.” 

That was more like it. The space next to him bent as somebody crawled in. Ennis thought of rolling over and putting his arm on Jack, but it was too much trouble. 

He’d almost managed to get back to sleep again when a voice came out of the darkness behind his eyelids. “You awake?”

It took a couple tries to get his mouth to work, cause he was parched like the desert, but he managed after a bit to say, “Sure.” 

“It’s past seven-thirty.”

Ennis didn’t say anything. 

“We told Bobby we’d pick him up at nine.” 

He’d forgotten about that until this second. Shit. Ennis opened his eyes. Sure, they were in that motel down the street from the bar. They’d banged on the lobby counter until somebody came and gave them a room, but then there’d been some trouble with the key. One of those plastic ones, and in front of their room they’d argued about whether it was meant to be put in this way or that way, and somebody had hollered at them to shut up. Jack had shouted back that he’d shut up when he good and well felt like it, and then for some reason the key went in the right way and worked that time. Jack had collapsed on the bed closest to the door and started snoring right away. Ennis’d had to lift his legs up on the mattress and take off his shoes. 

“You sure were drunk last night,” Ennis said.

“I was just thinking the same about you.” Jack saved Ennis the trouble of moving by rolling over and fitting himself up against his side, nestling in good at the right spot. Ennis’s arm went around him without even thinking about it. “You sleep okay?” Jack wanted to know.

He wasn’t sure that was sleep. It was more like dead to the world. “Yeah. You?”

“Yeah, only not enough of it. We’ve got to get up.”

“I know.”

“What a father won’t do for his son. I don’t want to move.” 

Jack nuzzled some at Ennis’s bare chest, cause he’d taken all his clothes off the night before, not like some lazy bum he knew. 

“Hey there. That tickles.” 

Jack ignored him and bumped against his nipple with his nose. 

“Twist, I know you think you are some hot stuff,” Ennis kissed the top of his head, “but I’m not thinking about your baby blues right now.”

“How about my dick?”

Ennis huffed out air. “Huh. You couldn’t get it up right now for a million dollars.” 

“Could too.” 

“Not for L.D. coming to beg your pardon.” 

“For that, I could get it up twice.” Jack seemed positive of that.

“Like when we were nineteen again.”

“Remember those times we did it seven times in only one day?”

Yeah, Ennis remembered both times that had happened, once on the mountain and once at the Siesta. Out of their minds with needing each other. 

He peered through the morning-motel gloom at Jack Twist in his arm, who raised his eyes to him. Rising forty, both of them, and they wouldn’t be doing it seven times in a day again cause things just worked differently now. But the needing each other was the same. Even with Jerry waiting for them at his garage, even with the Buckminsters waiting for him to come back to work and he couldn’t yet, even with Bobby waiting on them and needing to spend most of the rest of the day with him, Ennis didn’t mind being here with Jack so much. The knots he tied himself up in, that man knew how to get them straight.

“Hey,” Ennis said, his voice deep with the early morning and maybe some feeling too. “I like that hair on your lip, you know. I’m just getting on your case about it. I like running my fingers across it.”

Jack reached out to do that to him, where a moustache would be on him if he ever let one grow. It felt fine even without anything there. “I like that too,” Jack said.

Ennis moved as if to bite the fingers making his lip tingle, and Jack pulled them away. “You want to take a shower?” Ennis asked.

“Nope, let’s wait. We’d have to get back in these clothes and…” Jack pulled his shirt up to his nose and took a whiff, “…they don’t smell good. But I’ve got to go take a piss.”

Ennis watched him heave himself out of bed and walk to the bathroom. Jesus Lord Almighty. That man. Ennis shook his head at himself. He was sicker than any woman mooning over her fella, but…that man.

*****

They flipped a coin to decide which of them got to drive, and Jack won, meaning he got behind the wheel. They ran into work traffic leaving Amarillo, which slowed them, and then they stopped for breakfast at a truck stop. It happened that they sat near two guys who’d been drinking the night before at the very same bar. They didn’t look good, and Ennis figured him and Jack looked about the same. The four of them exchanged nods and that was it. It wasn’t until he was about finished with his eggs and pancakes that Ennis realized he hadn’t thought him and Jack might be taken for queers. He hadn’t thought those two driving a truck as a team might be queers, either. 

Jack slid back into the seat opposite from him, come back from the men’s room. “Here,” he said, and he pushed a plastic packet across the table. “I got this from a machine in there. Advil for what ails you.” 

Half an hour later Ennis felt half human again. 

*****

Jack drove the Ram up to L.D.’s house a few minutes short of eleven o’clock, cause it’d taken a while for them to get presentable and check out of the Day’s Inn. He pulled on the parking brake and turned to Ennis. “You coming inside?” 

How would it look for Jack to go into the house, say hello to Faye and maybe to L.D. if he was there, collect Bobby’s things that were there, and then say, oh, yeah, that man I live with, he’s hiding out in the truck. Ennis would have preferred staying right where he was, cause he didn’t see the sense of rubbing anybody’s nose in what they were. He already knew how Faye felt, and he wasn’t looking forward to hearing L.D.’s thoughts on the subject. For sure, though, Bobby would see what he was doing as the ways of a coward, instead of a man with some sense, and he couldn’t come across that way to the boy. 

“Sure,” Ennis said, “I’ll come in.”

“Okay then,” Jack said, and Ennis thought he looked equal parts relieved and anxious. “Let’s go get that boy of mine moved.”

They walked up to the front door, and Jack rang the doorbell. Ennis stood there in the hot rays of the late morning sun and waited a little behind Jack, cause this was his show. A couple minutes passed, but nobody answered. Jack frowned and rang again, then right away knocked on the door. Ennis shifted weight from one foot to the other, being grateful there were no neighbors to see. 

“You sure -- ”

“I’m sure!” Jack snapped. “I called Faye and told her to let Bobby know….”

“Maybe she kept that news to herself.” 

“Fuck,” Jack said loud and clear. Then, “They’ve got to be somewhere. I wonder if….” 

He reached for the doorknob, and it turned. Ennis said, “You sure about this, bud?” when he took a step inside. Jack kept going, so Ennis followed him. 

Jack’d had a nice house, but L.D.’s was twice the size. Ennis had been able to tell that from being outside it yesterday. The entranceway had a window high up, letting in lots of light onto a Mexican tiled floor. Ennis walked on it like he was treading on ice. 

“Bobby?” Jack called out. “Faye?” 

Jack moved off to the right, where he stopped abruptly under an archway leading to another room. Ennis came up behind him to see a living room with a high ceiling. L.D. sat on a cushy sofa, facing them, a bottle of Jack Daniels open on the coffee table in front of him. Ennis stopped as suddenly as Jack had, feeling how wrong that they’d walked into the man’s house, and how that man must be looking on them. Shit, he should’ve stayed in the truck.

Jack went forward a couple more steps, but Ennis didn’t move. “Where’s Bobby?” Jack asked, and then he took off his hat. Ennis swiped his off too.

L.D. raised piggy eyes. Ennis didn’t like the looks of the man or the situation, but he didn’t know what to do, whether to try to get Jack out of there or stand where he was or what. It looked like maybe that whiskey bottle was more than half empty. L.D. had been drinking harder than they’d done last night, and for the opposite reason, Ennis figured. Him and Jack, they’d been pretty damn glad just to be with each other, and that had turned into a thrum of feeling good that had been with Ennis for hours now. Even waking up hungover with his mouth tasting of a sewer, still it’d been under circumstances he’d never want to change. But L.D., he’d been digging into his sad. He sure had plenty of it. For the first time, Ennis thought to compare Newsome’s loss to himself and the impossible loss of Junior or Jenny, and how he’d feel if that happened. He couldn’t even imagine…. He couldn’t blame the man for drinking. 

“Where’s Bobby?” the old man repeated, tasting the words. He was as red as if he’d been sunburned. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, since he isn’t any son of yours.”

Jack blew out impatient air. “Come on, L.D., is he here? Did he go in to school after all?”

“He can’t be any son of yours because you’re a faggot, and everybody knows faggots can’t get it up with women.” The man’s gaze wandered away from Jack, took in Ennis for less than a second, and then dropped down to his lap. “My grandson is not the flesh and blood of a fucking faggot,” he mumbled.

Weight settled on Ennis’s chest. Him and Jack, faggots. There was no denying it when Lureen had said so, even if he wanted to take that word and throw it right out the big living room window. He wasn’t…. Jack wasn’t…. Ennis wanted to turn around and get out of there. He wanted to smash L.D.’s face in and see it bleed. He wanted to take away the look in Jack’s eyes. He wanted it not to be true, when it was.

This trip had gone too easily. He should have known the shoe had to drop sometime. What he’d feared as he left the safety of their own house in Eagle Nest, well, he had to stand against it. Faggot. 

Goddamned, sonuvabitch L.D. Newsome. The jerk didn’t see anything but what him and Jack did in bed together, did he? He didn’t see that they weren’t bad men. They were pretty good men compared to some. L.D. didn’t see that they weren’t liars or cheats, that they didn’t steal stuff or beat their wives or kick their kids or make life miserable for those around them. They didn’t like to see others in the dust. They weren’t that kind of men, but it didn’t matter. This jerk that Jack had put up with all those years, he was the kind of man who felt free to say such things to Jack, to both of them, when he didn’t even know Ennis. 

Ennis watched as Jack’s shoulders got tight, pulling in on himself. “Are you accusing your daughter of having a child from outside our marriage?” he asked, as if L.D. would listen to reason. “Because that’s what it sounds like you’re saying. I don’t think Lureen screwed around, do you?”

L.D. hitched forward on the sofa cushion and made a bear’s swipe with his arm, cutting through the air toward Jack as if he was within reach instead of feet away. “Don’t you talk about my daughter that way! She was…. She was….” Back against the sofa L.D. went, wiping at his eyes. “Why didn’t you leave her sooner?” he asked, just this side of letting the tears go. “Why?”

Suppose this was Kurt that Junior was dating, suppose he did what Jack had done? 

Suppose Kurt did…what Ennis had done?

“L.D., tell me where Bobby is,” Jack said pretty calmly, considering. “Is Faye in the house? Where’s she gone?”

But the man wasn’t listening. “She could’ve had happiness if you’d only gone away. She could’ve found love. My baby left us without knowing what it’s like to be loved by a real man.” 

Jack looked down to the carpet, and Ennis couldn’t blame him. What L.D. was saying was cutting through him, and it wasn’t even directed his way. What could a man say to what L.D. was accusing? Cause…it was true, wasn’t it? And he figured Jack thought so too. 

There was a reason why Jack had stayed on, and why him and Lureen had been husband and wife for seventeen long years. Jack hadn’t left Lureen cause he’d been waiting for Ennis to see that the two of them needed to be together. Ennis had been stuck in the mud of his own fears, and so set on denying what he was that the years had gone on and on.

He had his own share of this burden to bear, didn’t he? L.D. could be pointing the finger at him, if he knew the truth of things. 

Ennis stepped up next to Jack, who’d gone as pale as L.D. was red. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. No need to listen to this.”

“Oh, yes there is,” L.D. said. “Reenie deserved a real marriage. She was so beautiful,” he half-moaned, rocking back and forth a couple times. “My baby deserved the best, and all she got was a rodeo clown who likes sticking it up another man’s….”

Something inside Ennis shrank back, cause L.D.’s eyes were on him now. “Is this your faggot lover? This scarecrow? Who you left Lureen for?”

Ennis tugged on Jack’s sleeve. “Let’s go.” 

Jack shrugged him off. He got closer to L.D., way too close in Ennis’s opinion. He wasn’t gonna let anything really bad happen, like assault that Jack would go to prison for, or a murder, or even another mark to his face. So he got closer too, up to the coffee table now. 

“L.D.,” Jack said, and his voice was trembling. “L.D., you are….” His arm came up, pointing the way he did sometimes when Ennis had seen him mad out of his skull. 

A third time he said, “L.D…..” And then his arm came down and he said, working hard to get it out, “L.D., I want you to meet my partner, Ennis Del Mar.” 

Ennis looked at Jack like he’d lost his mind, cause he had. What the hell was he supposed to do with that, huh? It didn’t seem that L.D. knew either, cause when Ennis switched his view to the old man, he was staring at the two of them like they’d both grown purple and orange stripes. 

L.D. got to his feet, but he wasn’t any threat with all the drink in him. 

“Get out of my house, you filth,” he said. Ennis stepped back to avoid getting sprayed with spit, and Jack let himself get pulled back. L.D.’s mouth was loose, his lips full, and if he knew how disgusting he was, he didn’t care. “Both of you. I don’t want to know either one of you. If I could forget you ever walked this earth, I would. And don’t think that you can take Bobby away, because you can’t. He’ll stay with us.” 

“He’s my son,” Jack gritted out, and his sudden fury made Ennis keep hold of his arm. 

“You don’t want him,” L.D. said with a sneer. “You’re pawning him off on friends he hardly knows. The boy won’t even have a home. What kind of father are you? I’m talking to my lawyer this afternoon. We’re going to get custody, and then see how you like it.” 

“Custody?” Jack threw back, giving as good as he got. “You want to try to get custody of a boy who’ll be eighteen in four more months, you be my guest. That shows just what a fool you are. Come December, Bobby decides who he’s with, but until then he’s my son and he’s going to live anywhere that’s not with you, you motherfucker. He doesn’t want to be with you and, besides, you’re the last man I’d want influencing my son.”

It seemed that a hundred years passed while Jack and L.D. stared at one another, each of them mad enough to start butting at each other like bull elk, but only a couple seconds later the sound came of a garage door going up and a car pulling in. L.D. frowned. “I’ve had more influence over that boy than you ever did, and thank God for that. He’s a real man.”

“You go ahead and think you’ve had a say in that boy’s upbringing if you want, but I know the truth,” Jack said, and Ennis wondered if he really meant that. 

A door further in the house opened, and Faye called out “Jack?” at the same time that Bobby said, “Dad?” 

Jack turned away, and L.D. sat down fast. Ennis wasn’t sorry to see Bobby come in, looking from his dad to his granddad and surely knowing that something had been going on between them. “I thought you were going to be here at nine?” he said. “I could’ve gone to morning classes if I’d known you’d be late.” 

*****

After they got to the house on Olney Avenue, it took two solid hours of work to pack and load the truck and Bobby’s car with the mattress and boxspring from the boy’s room, the nightstand, the chest of drawers, the bookcase, the dresser, the beanbag chair, the pole lamp, the portable TV, the stereo, and then all the books in boxes, all the boxes of clothes, the clothes from the closet, and a paper sack filled with old wooden blocks that the boy must have played with when he was a kid, that Jack and Bobby made jokes about but treated like it was precious all the same. Then there was the typewriter that Jack got from what must have been an office the family used, not to mention emptying the garage of sports stuff.

Bobby passed them going back into the house while Ennis and Jack lugged the heavy headboard down the outside steps, the last thing that had been left in Bobby’s now-empty room. They slid it behind the dresser up against the truck wall, filling up every inch of the truck bed. The kid owned more stuff than Ennis had moved from Wyoming with, but he didn’t say that. He hadn’t said much of anything the whole time the three of them had been working. He was content to let Jack and Bobby talk to each other and try to get his ease back after facing L.D. He guessed Jack was doing the same thing in a different way, reassuring himself that him and Bobby were still okay with each other no matter what L.D. had said. The boy seemed mainly to be glad to be leaving L.D.’s house. 

Jack grunted as he shoved more at the headboard, and Ennis went over to the side, checking that none of the boxes would fly off onto the road. Bobby came back down the steps, saying, “I’ve locked up. Dad, do you want any of these?” He was carrying three big photo albums.

“What do you have there?” Jack asked like Bobby was five, but the kid didn’t seem to mind. Right there they spread out the albums on the hood of Bobby’s car and started looking at the pictures. 

Ennis stood back, figuring he wasn’t part of this. He kept looking at his watch and at the sky, checking for rain that would have made the move a mess. That wasn’t likely to happen. Underneath that was a crazy fear that Jerry might pull up, which he knew wouldn’t happen either, but even so. It was nearing two o’clock, and they had to drive back home tonight, nearly seven hours, and they still had to unload all this stuff and get Bobby settled in the Montcrief house. He didn’t know about Jack, but he sure wasn’t looking forward to turning into County Road 19 past midnight. 

“Twist,” he said, and both of them looked up at him. Shit, he shouldn’t have said anything. There was tears in both sets of eyes. Ennis realized too late that of course they were thinking of times when they were a family and Lureen had been with them. 

“Uh, sorry.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“No, what did you want to say, Ennis?” Jack looked like exactly what was happening, that his ex-wife had died and he was leaving his son to go it alone. Not so good. 

“I was thinking we need to be moving on.”

“Yeah, sure. You’re right.” Jack straightened and closed the book on what seemed to be photos of the family at a beach. “Bobby, why don’t you take all these, but maybe you could bring them with you when you come visit, okay? For me to see again. Then you can keep them permanently.”

Bobby was looking at Ennis like he wished he weren’t there, but he said, “Sure, Dad. Whenever I come out.” 

“Hope you can do that,” Ennis said, feeling like the worst kind of heel. Shit. 

It took another two hours for them to unload the stuff at the Montcrief house. Jack introduced Ennis to Rose as “a friend of mine who came out for the funeral,” and there wasn’t any more explanation needed. Bobby stood by, looking stiff and uncomfortable. 

It was close to four o’clock before the three of them were by the Ram again, empty of all but the suitcases filled with the good clothes that had been worn to the viewing and the funeral. It was time to say good-bye. Bobby came toward Ennis first and shook his hand without saying anything, but Ennis was surprised to get that much. He was grateful for it. Then the boy turned to his dad, and the two of them hugged each other for a good minute. 

“You call me if you need anything,” Jack said when they finally separated. “If this thing with Charlie’s folks doesn’t work out, we can always -- ”

“It’ll be fine, Dad, don’t worry.” It seemed to Ennis that Bobby was ready to get on with his life. Maybe he would jump into his car as soon as they left, go off to another band practice or over to his girlfriend’s house. Or maybe, more likely, he wanted to show that he was strong, when inside he wasn’t. But that was a boy’s way, and Ennis understood that.

“Okay, then,” Jack said. “You…you take care.” He went as if to tousle the boy’s hair, but Bobby ducked out from under, and Jack grabbed empty air instead. 

Ennis had won the coin toss this time. He got into the driver’s seat, and he didn’t waste time pulling away. 

*****

“It’s true,” Jack said into the quiet that had lived between them for the last fifty miles. “What L.D. said. I am pawning my son off on folks who aren’t his family. What Bobby must think of me….” Jack put his hand up and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Ennis didn’t have anything to say to that. It was something they both had to live with. 

He drove straight into the setting sun that hurt his eyes, but there wasn’t anything to be done about that either. Along past Dumas, after they’d got hamburgers at a Burger King drive-through, they’d planned to switch to share time at the wheel. But Ennis looked over at Jack; he was leaning back half against the door, his head tilted, his legs stretched, and his eyes closed. Another minute and he knew Jack was sleeping.

That was okay. He’d let Jack be. Ennis rolled his window down and shut off the AC. He kept driving away from Childress, taking them home. 

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Friends!
> 
> I wanted to let all readers know what the future of FON will be.
> 
> POSTING SCHEDULE  
> Chapter Sixteen, which is the last chapter in Earthquake, will go up sometime next week, probably Tuesday or Wednesday.
> 
> HIATUS  
> After I post the last chapter of Earthquake, I will take a short hiatus. I'll be back sometime around early or mid-July with the opening chapters of Force of Nature: Storm. 95% of this novel is written already, so you will be reading it, I promise!
> 
> COMMENTS  
> I do so love to correspond with readers through the comment section, and I believe all these unbelievably insightful comments deserve respectful discussion! I try very hard to respond to all comments, but already I am behind in doing that. Sorry! I hope to respond to all comments during the hiatus. 
> 
> THE SECOND NOVEL IN THE TRILOGY: FORCE OF NATURE: STORM  
> 1\. A few readers have asked me what Storm is about. Storm starts just a few weeks after the end of Earthquake. The same characters are involved, but the focus of the story shifts to a different theme. Earthquake, the first novel, is all about establishing a solid foundation for Jack and Ennis, so that they can face the difficulties of life together, committed to each other, even if they and their lives are far from perfect. Storm is about... something else! LOL! Read it to see.
> 
> 2\. Readers might notice that many problems and situations were set up in Earthquake but not resolved. Perhaps chief among those is what the heck is going on at the feedlot. Lots of other plot threads are still active -- maybe all of them are! -- and these will be pursued in Storm. There will also be new situations for Jack and Ennis to encounter.
> 
> THANKS!  
> Thanks so much to those of you who are reading Force of Nature. I appreciate your comments and your support so much! If you like reading the back and forth of comments between reader and writer, there are more such conversations at my LiveJournal, which can be found at jenna-hilary.livejournal.com.


	16. Circle Unbroken

Jack woke up slowly, because it was Saturday morning and there wasn’t any need to force himself out of bed, and because this had been a tough week-and-a-half for him. He curled into a ball under the sheet, feeling like maybe he’d been stomped on, but it was just that the aches and pains of life had come to roost.

He glanced at the clock to see it was past eight-thirty and then closed his eyes again. The weather forecast predicted that the weekend would have lots of sunshine, but he was going to spend it alone, like usual. Regardless of what had been said, almost said, and not said back in Childress, there were still those horses out in the pasture. That’s where Ennis would be and had been now for hours, since that was his way. Maybe, if Jack was lucky, he could convince that skinflint to go out to dinner with him this evening. Maybe they could spend some time in Taos.

The smell of bacon cooking hit his nose. 

Jack frowned as he uncurled and went back against the pillow. What? 

It took him a minute to take it in: the smells coming from the kitchen and the small sounds that told of somebody moving out there. Alone in the bedroom, he stretched and smiled up at the ceiling, maybe not feeling as bad as he’d thought. He doubted it was some burglar who’d come to make breakfast, so it had to be that fella he’d taken up housekeeping with. Ennis, who wasn’t out in the pasture after all. 

He put on clothes and wandered out to where Ennis stood over the stove. Jack got closer -- noticing that he was being ignored -- and peered over Ennis’s shoulder at the belly-warming sight of a pan of bacon popping and eggs frying, and another pan where there were four slices of bread cooking in melted butter. 

“Hi, there,” he said in a husky, first-words-of-the-morning voice. He rested his chin on Ennis’s checked shirt, and his hands found a place on bony hipbones.

“Hi, yourself,” Ennis said as he flipped over a piece of French toast. 

“What’re you doing?”

Ennis shrugged, but Jack rode the motion like a surfer on a wave. “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m making breakfast.”

“Since when do you know how to make stuff like this?” 

“It ain’t hard. No big thing.” 

His tough-guy ranch hand. He kissed the side of Ennis’s neck, his lips lingering, drawing out the moment, loving the taste of warm skin against his lips and putting feeling into it. 

Ennis stopped what he was doing, his hand suspended over the stove, and tilted his head a bit…until one of the bacon slices threw up a hot drop of grease. “Hey, now, if you want to eat, you’d better leave me alone.”

Jack backed off with his hands up. “Okay, okay, I’ll leave the chef in peace.” He went into the bathroom, did what he needed to do, and when he came out food was set on plates. 

“Where’d this come from?” he asked as he sat down and saw the _Denver Post_ on the table. 

“I picked it up yesterday when I went into town for Rocky. Here, you want the sports or the front page?” 

They divided up the newspaper and set to eating and reading, except after the first couple of bites Jack put the paper down and looked across at Ennis. He was sipping from his mug, with his glasses on the end of his nose. 

“What?” Ennis asked. “Can’t a man drink coffee in his own house?”

His own house. Their own house. After six months, finally, a Saturday morning like this. Jack wanted to say something and let on that he knew what was going on. This time was a gift he was being given, and it moved him to know Ennis was willing to do this for him. Back in Texas, all he’d got for sure was that Ennis wouldn’t buy stadium lights. But Ennis was back to holding the paper like a shield, so he didn’t say any of that.

“You fake,” he murmured, and he popped a piece of bacon into his mouth. Ennis grunted, and everything felt damn near right-with-the-world.

Sunshine came through the screen door and the window over the sink. A shaft of light cut across the floor and then across the table. Jack could see the motes of dust drifting. After a time, Ennis read half a column from the paper out loud, about the Detroit Tigers pitching staff, and Jack reported on what Mondale and Reagan were doing on the campaign trail. He got up and poured more coffee for both of them, dropping a kiss on the top of Ennis’s head on his way back to the counter. 

They hadn’t done anything in their bed except sleep since they’d got back, both of them being exhausted after the trip and taking up their jobs again, with lots to catch up on. Corliss, for example, hadn’t been happy with Jack being gone the extra days and had made no secret of it. Jack would burn in hell before he explained to the big boss about how he’d needed the time to get Bobby settled, so he kept quiet about that and instead put in extra hours working late. Ennis had been set on making up for lost time with the horses and was clearly nervous about Morgan coming for Trouble on Sunday. They’d barely seen each other since they’d got home. That was different, after being together a lot the days before. 

Jack sat back down, and they traded sections of the paper. This breakfast reminded him of the time he’d gone over to Ennis’s apartment in Canyon with a bag of groceries. That was when he’d realized that he couldn’t walk away from the part of him that was Ennis, and that he needed to give Ennis a chance to prove he could change. They’d come a long way since that day, when they’d hammered out boundaries and made demands, circling each other, unsure of each other, but both of them wanting to try. 

“It’s getting cool in the mornings already,” Ennis offered over the top of the editorials. “I think it won’t be much different from Riverton or the Tetons when winter comes. Cold enough to freeze our balls.” 

“We’ll need to find ways to keep each other warm, like we used to do in those tents.” 

Ennis snorted instead of laughing. “Shithead.” But then he looked straight at Jack. 

Over the last weeks, people had asked Jack what he saw in Ennis Del Mar. Bobby had wanted to know, and Lureen, and Gary, and even L.D. had thundered over Jack being with such a scarecrow. Jack hadn’t been able to answer any of them, not really, mainly ignoring Lureen, shutting Gary down, deflecting L.D., and telling Bobby all the wrong things or things that didn’t matter. What did matter was…he didn’t really know himself. He didn’t think what he had together with Ennis could be easily explained.

Except sometimes the answer came to him in the press of a sleepy kiss, or a smart-ass remark, or the set of Ennis’s stubborn jaw. Or in a flash of rightness: Ennis looking at him across a table. That’s what mattered, this moment during breakfast, simple, with no lovey-dovey like Bobby feared of them. This moment, and all the moments that were to come for him and Ennis: somehow, in the four long years of their separation and in the sixteen hard years of their exile from the world, Jack had known they were possible. This was what he’d yearned for, needed, despaired of, and finally turned away from. Only to have it given to him after all, better than he’d ever imagined, not because it was perfect, but because it was real. 

This moment now caught in him deep, snagged there, held, held, held. The warmth in those eyes, nothing held back because they each knew the other’s secrets. His dick stirred. He shifted in his chair, and Ennis looked down at his plate, like he knew how Jack was feeling and was thinking the same. 

And that was when the goddamned phone rang. Both of them started as if they’d been caught holding hands on nationwide TV. Shit. But he guessed it had to happen. If he liked it real, this was the way real was: phone calls, and people dying, and bosses who got mad, and never enough time together.

Ennis scraped back from the table to go silence the ringing. “Hello? Oh, hi, Jenny.”

And real life was children who needed to talk to you. 

“No, I was…. No need to be worried. I was out of town for a couple days is all.” 

He stretched out the cord to stand by the washing machine, and Jack sighed. There wasn’t any reason anymore to extend the eating and the reading. He emptied his plate and then got up to do the dishes. He could hear Ennis talking to Jenny, explaining about Lureen dying and following Jack to the funeral. Hearing it told to somebody who had no part in it was strange, and it brought out some of the sad in him again. Even so, he was glad that Ennis was talking freely to his daughter about his life with Jack. Someday he was going to have to meet that girl, and Junior too. 

He was about finished washing when Ennis said, “Don’t you worry the next time we don’t answer, okay? I gotta go, got things to do. I’ll call you next time. Yeah. Me too, darling. Bye.” And he hung up the phone. 

“How’s Jenny doing?” Jack asked.

“She’s fine.” Ennis went over toward him, one hand dug deep in the pocket of his jeans, jutting his elbow out awkwardly. He nodded toward the fry pan sitting on the counter. “That’ll keep, won’t it? Come on outside.”

“Outside?”

“Yeah. Want to show you something.” He got his hat from the hook and looked around at Jack expectantly. “Well?”

Whatever Ennis had going on, Jack would play along. “Where to?” 

But Ennis wasn’t saying, he just turned and went through the door. Jack followed him past the trucks parked on the gravel driveway and out onto the grass. It was one of those magical New Mexico days where the colors were so bright and immediate that they looked to be glowing in a stained glass window. A person might think he could grab a handful of fresh-growing green, or swipe his fingers through a whirlpool of white in the clouds, or stuff the pure yellow sunshine pouring down on the world into a box, to keep it there against days like the two of them had endured when they’d been separate, after their fight out in the pasture. 

Ennis didn’t lead toward the stable like Jack expected. Instead, he cut across the grass toward their forest. Now both his hands were in his pockets, and his shoulders were hunched. He had no eyes for anything but the ground. Jack slowed as Ennis went on, hardly believing what had popped into his mind. Could it be…. Maybe it wasn’t only the lazy time over food and newspaper he was being given but even more, though in Ennis’s own dumbass way. Laughter -- maybe you could even call it joy -- welled up in him like the underground life of Old Faithful shooting up into the air. He stopped where he was in the middle of the yard.

“Hey, Ennis,” he called, for by this time Ennis was almost under the first of the leaning trees. 

Ennis swung around. “What?”

Jack stuck his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans, cocked his hips defiantly, and said in his best Texan drawl, “Are you kidnapping me?” 

“Hell, yes,” Ennis said right back. “You got a problem with that?”

“You don’t have a gun.”

“So what?”

“And you don’t even have a shovel like I had before.”

With a growl, Ennis started back toward him. “I got something better than that, Jack Twist.” 

Ennis looked so fine, determined, with his eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?” Jack challenged. “Or do you expect me to cooperate in my own kidnapping?”

Ennis stood right before him. “If you think I’m showing you what I’ve got out here in the open, you’re nuts. Come on.” He grabbed Jack’s elbow and pulled him along. Jack fake-protested when in truth he had no objections at all. 

Once they got to the treeline, Jack led the way into the forest and down the deer path toward where he knew Ennis wanted him to go, to where he’d kidnapped Ennis weeks ago -- how could it only be weeks? -- and where he’d gone that night Lureen had told him what was going to happen. Like always, there was a hush to this place, a quiet stillness like being alone in a church, along with a feeling that the pines and the oaks were waiting for something to happen. Jack knew that the trees were right, because him and Ennis, they kept having new beginnings. 

He walked up to where a white sheet was spread on the ground, which from the hills and valleys of it had something soft underneath. He stopped there and looked down with one big lump in his throat. His Wyoming man. He heard Ennis come up behind him and heard him breathing, but Ennis didn’t touch him or say anything. 

He imagined maybe Ennis was anxious, fearful that he’d done something dumb that might not be welcome. But then, maybe not. It could be that Ennis was taking in this moment the same way Jack was now, listening to the sounds all around them -- a persistent dove cooing somewhere over their heads, the buzz of insects here and there. Taking the time to think. To feel. 

It was Saturday, when under their old ways Ennis would be out back and Jack would be alone. But here they were instead, with all that had come behind them and all that was ahead of them, with a bed all-their-own waiting for the press of their bodies together. 

“I think damn highly on you, Ennis Del Mar,” he said, not turning around.

“Don’t believe it could be as high as I think on you.” 

A hand settled on his shoulder and turned him. Jack searched Ennis’s face.

“Do you know how crazy I am about you?” Jack asked. “So fucking crazy about my man.” 

He reached out to Ennis at the same time Ennis reached for him, and then they were in a full-bodied hug, what surely felt right to Jack, to be up against all of Ennis, front to front, their arms around each other, holding tight. 

“Want to kiss you,” Ennis murmured in his ear. “Been thinking about this since six in the morning. Want to do a lot more than just kiss you.”

Kissing Ennis -- not some pick-up from The Sportsman’s Lodge, not Gary, not Randy, not the no-name man from Mexico -- kissing Ennis was what he wanted, what he’d always wanted. And so that’s what Jack did under the everlasting shadows and the persistent light that found a way through the leaves to the forest floor: small, exact kisses with his mouth closed, all over Ennis’s neck and his chin, up in a line to his ear, then big soppy, wet kisses with their mouths open and all over each other, with their tongues connecting again and again, and Jack thought he would lose his mind with how good it was. Jack kissed Ennis, and he let Ennis kiss him as they stood and swayed against each other while the trees looked down. But nobody else could see them, and nobody else witnessed what truly was, this sacred space between them. 

“Let me get this shirt off you,” Ennis said as he worked on the buttons. Jack stood there and Ennis did it like he had nothing else in the world to do, putting lips to skin as each button was undone, going lower until he went to his knees with his tongue in Jack’s belly-button. Jack’s erection prodded strong against his zipper. He spread his feet wide to withstand it and put both hands on Ennis’s head, his fingers threading through the honey strands. He moaned out loud, startling a _caw!_ from a crow overhead. 

Ennis rubbed his cheek against the bulge in his jeans. “Not gonna do that now,” he said. “Like you said in the bar, slow and easy like.” 

Jack hauled Ennis to his feet by grabbing him under both arms. “The hell you say.” 

“Yeah,” Ennis said, standing nose-to-nose with him. “That’s what I say.”

“We’ll both die of heart attacks out here, and nobody’ll find our bodies for days.” 

Ennis grabbed his face between his hands. “Hell of a way to go,” and he kissed him again.

Jack attacked his buttons while he sucked on Ennis’s tongue, and pretty soon they were bare chest to bare chest. It felt fucking good, especially when Ennis went after his nipple like a baby, but a man couldn’t take teasing like that for long. Jack shoved and Ennis landed on his back with the sheet all around him, with an _oomph._ Jack was kneeling between his legs the second after, laughing and gasping at the same time and, most importantly, undoing the belt and zipper that stood between his watering mouth and what he needed. 

Ennis got real still as Jack shoved the jeans down around his hips and his dick popped through the opening of his shorts. He propped himself up on his elbows as Jack took the dick in his hand and went down close toward it. 

“I want this to last,” Ennis said, his voice as quiet as the sounds of the dove. “Don’t want to shoot too fast. Don’t do me too long, okay?”

Don’t do him too long? Jack wanted to laugh again. He intended to do Ennis until he screamed for mercy, until he came in big jets against the back of Jack’s throat, arching up into Jack’s mouth, his hands clenched into fists and yelling out loud. He intended to do Ennis right now, and for the rest of this year, and for the rest of their lives. He intended to do Ennis until that hard man who was soft at the core of him relaxed enough so it wasn’t so painful to have the soft showing, until the two of them together found a way to make the promises that were between them come true: Ennis feeling safe enough to come out from behind the shield of his horses, and Jack being patient to let that happen because he believed it would. 

Jack stared down at Ennis’s dick, at the foreskin already halfway back, at the drop of come barely visible at the slit, and then he stared up along the length of Ennis’s body to where he was being looked at by the brown-eyed boy, and the steely-eyed man, and the Ennis who his fella was trying to be.

All of them, his Ennis. Jack blinked through his feelings. Six months and here they were, Ennis giving him this morning. He stuck out his tongue and lapped at the dick, holding it steady at the base, getting into it because he did love dick, Ennis’s dick in particular, the warmth against his hand and in his mouth, the trembling of blood beneath the stretched-out skin, how touching it was like touching velvet over marble. He’d never come across another uncut dick like Ennis’s. It seemed that somebody had been looking down on him, saying _This one is special. There isn’t anybody else like him. Pay attention, Jack Twist, because this one’s the love of your life._

He pulled the foreskin forward and took it between his teeth like he did every now and then. Ennis moaned and fell back, knowing what was coming. 

“Oh, God,” he panted. “Be careful there, I….oh, hell.” 

Jack took the rim of rolled flesh and stretched it down and over the head, running his tongue back and forth, loving the way Ennis had gone rigid as a board. It was because he feared being torn, and no wonder, but he trusted Jack to do this without harm. 

“Thought…thought I was the one who brought you here,” Ennis gasped. His hands slapped against the ground. “Lemme go, Jack, lemme go.” 

_No chance,_ Jack thought, but of a sudden he released the ‘skin and went down on Ennis completely, opening his mouth wide and taking in the whole shaft from tip to root. He held it and hummed, knowing how it must feel, and in a flash it came to him that might be one reason…one reason why he liked men. He’d had no idea how Lureen had felt when they’d had sex, but when he was with Ennis, it sometimes seemed they were two men in one body; he knew exactly how what he was doing felt. In a weird way it was like making love to himself, and maybe he’d needed that after his bastard dad had done his worst raising him, making him feel like shit, like he wasn’t worthy to go on living. 

Going up and down on Ennis’s dick, his tongue working, his lips covering his teeth so he didn’t bite by mistake, tasting that sharp tang of pre-come when he held the head in his mouth: all that made his own dick swell and made his heart pound. That was happening right now. He’d never got excited with Lureen except by imagining something else that wasn’t really happening, but with Ennis he didn’t need to go someplace else in his mind. He could be here all the way, all of him. 

He didn’t even realize that he’d stopped moving, that he was sort of paralyzed thinking about it as he bent over his man with his mouth stuffed with dick, until Ennis pulled away and tipped him over onto his side. 

“Let’s get out of these clothes,” he said roughly. Jack sat up and watched while Ennis jerked off his workboots and pulled off his socks, as he shimmied shorts and jeans down his legs and away. He sat there naked and looked over at Jack looking at him. 

“Stand up,” Jack said. 

“What?”

“Stand up. Let me see you.” 

He could tell Ennis didn’t want to, but he did anyway. Jack got up on his knees and let his eyes travel all over, taking in the hair that grew densely around Ennis’s nipples, his strong, work-worn hands, and his long legs.

Damn. Damn, damn, Ennis looked like…he didn’t really know, except shivers were going down his arms at the sight of him. Like maybe he was some forest creature nobody else knew about, here only for Jack, dappled by sunlight falling over one shoulder, with a leaf fluttering down to the ground in front of him even as Jack watched, and the treehouse pine with its steps leading up to the sky behind. 

His sight riveted on Ennis’s dick standing out proud. He knee-walked forward and barely brushed the side of it with two fingers. “I do this for you,” he said quietly. “Nobody else touches you, and I don’t touch anybody else.” He reached under and lifted Ennis’s balls in the palm of his hand. “You’ve got such a fine set here.”

“Hey,” Ennis whispered. “Come on up here.” 

Jack stood but Ennis stepped back right away. “Now you,” he said. “It’s only fair.”

The dumb belt fought him, but he got it undone with shaky fingers at last. It didn’t help that while Ennis was staring at him, Ennis’s hand moved from his side and went to his own dick. Jack froze with his jeans around his knees, and he watched while Ennis’s fingers wrapped around himself, how his thumb teased the slit, and how he began to pump. 

“Christ,” Jack breathed. 

“I want you naked,” Ennis said. 

Fast as he could, Jack tried to rid himself of his clothes, but he couldn’t pull jeans over shoes. He sat down, hitting the dirt with his bare butt, but not caring. 

“Shit!” he hissed between his teeth as he struggled with his clothes and watched Ennis go after himself. “Stop! That’s for me.” 

“I ain’t gonna go off without you,” Ennis said, but his breath was coming in broken hitches. 

At last Jack stood up, and as soon as he did, Ennis let go of himself. He looked at Jack, uncertainty in his eyes or maybe…embarrassment? Then, deliberately, Ennis spread his arms wide. 

Jack had been one second away from erasing the distance between them, grabbing Ennis and wrapping one arm around him, and with the other knocking away his hand to take its place, to make Ennis come in his palm while they were both standing there, to feel the dick jerking as it coughed out seed and to see the look on his face, and then to follow as Ennis collapsed down to the ground, push his legs back and fuck him as long and as hard as any human being could manage. But….

Ennis stood before him in the middle of the pure white sheet, bare as the day he was born, his dick stiff and wanting the way only a man could want, and still with his arms spread like wings to either side. Jack stayed where he was. 

“Here I am,” Ennis said, so low it was tough to hear him, but Jack had a lifetime of hearing Ennis. 

“I know,” Jack choked out. 

“You want what I’m showing you now? Even though I don’t have any gun or shovel?”

Jack could hardly take in air. Here was his hedgehog Ennis, opening up, offering. Maybe Ennis still couldn’t take all that Jack wanted to tell him and make him understand, but he could give. What they’d said to each other in Childress: Ennis was showing him they weren’t empty words.

“Sweetheart,” he said, meaning it, his voice merging with the rustling of the wind.

“Dickhead,” Ennis said right back. “I don’t want to force you. But you were gonna come home anyway, weren’t you? Before Lureen died.”

“Yeah,” he said, swallowing hard. “I was going to come home. I don’t need a gun or a shovel to make me want you.” 

“I ain’t fancy. Don’t have much.”

Jack took two more steps. “You’re just the light of my life, that’s all.”

Ennis looked off to the side. “You and your pet names,” and for some reason Jack didn’t understand, he said it with some pain to it.

“What? You really don’t want me to say those? They’re only -- ”

“No,” Ennis said. “It’s okay.” He brought his eyes back to Jack, and there was so much need in them…. His arms wavered. “Are you coming over here or not?”

He swooped in on Ennis without any notion in his head except getting as close as he could, and it seemed Ennis wanted the same. They grappled at each other, arms squeezing strong enough to force air out of lungs, and both of them toppled down. 

Jack rolled over on top, bringing their lips and their dicks and every other part together, kissing wildly, bruising his own lips and probably Ennis’s too, or was that Ennis bruising him? Bruising because he had to have more. His dick and his heart both were hot like the sun, and that’s what happened when you flew close to the center of things. Jack pulled away from Ennis suck-kissing his lower lip. “Ennis,” he gasped. The forest was quiet, but there was a huge roaring in his ears anyway.

Ennis grabbed his head and tried to bring him back down, but he fought against it. “Ennis!” he said again, up on stiff arms and barely keeping himself away with the hold on him. 

“What?”

He wanted to say _I’ve got to fuck you._ Or maybe that was _You’ve got to fuck me._ Or maybe it was _If I’d stayed away, nothing would’ve been any good._ But he got caught in the moment like he had at breakfast: Ennis looking at him. 

Ennis didn’t look at people much. He kept his head down and sneaked peeks at them, keeping his own self hidden that way. But…he was looking at Jack now, and he had before too.

Warmth flowed through him, slow-moving down into his chest that got tight with feeling, down into his belly, and down even farther into the very bones of the earth. Ennis looking at him, solid, real: Jack was anchored now in the place he’d always wanted to be, in Ennis. Jack released his arms and lowered down, keeping just enough away that he could see Ennis’s face: the wanting, the strength, the hidden fire. 

“I goddamn love you,” Jack said, tenderness taking hold of all parts of him. “You know that?”

Ennis shifted his hands against Jack’s cheeks, and his thumbs stroked along his moustache. “I suppose I know it,” Ennis said, but his eyes never left Jack’s. “You know I love you, right? All the damn time.” 

“Yeah, I know. You dumbass,” he said, as sweetly as a man could say. He pressed a kiss on Ennis’s open lips.

“Baby,” Ennis murmured with their mouths still on each other. “Let’s…. Here, you go back.” 

Jack let himself be rolled over where he could see the canopy of branches and pine needles and the fleeting shape of a bird flying swiftly overhead, and then Ennis was pushing his knees back and pulling his legs apart. Jack wasted no time going along. But the way Ennis had him, it wasn’t far enough for fucking. What? 

“You stay still,” Ennis said. “I’ve got this notion in my head, wanted to do….” He trailed off as he leaned in close. Jack held himself open with his hands under his knees. He could feel Ennis’s breath on him down there, but nothing else.

Jack had a flash of what this must look like if somebody was to come on them, seeing what they were doing, with him in this position and Ennis over him between his legs. His dick -- that had been just this side of can’t-stand-it -- hardened that last little bit so fast it hurt. He gasped out loud, and now he really couldn’t stand it. Ennis had to touch him, had to go down on him, or Jack was going to melt into the ground.

“Damn it!” he got out. “What’re you…. Ennis, get going!” 

The wet swipe of a tongue north of his asshole -- unexpected to feel anything there, his Ennis doing this -- sent a jolt straight through him, through the top of his head, and his whole body shook in reaction. Ennis was about flat on his belly down there, and he wasn’t finished yet…. Jack gulped in air, shuddering. 

Real slowly, like he meant every move, Ennis went down to his asshole and started one long, long lick. He started there, then covered the ground going up to Jack’s balls, up over the center seam of them, not stopping, from way down below to up top, covering the fullness of them even though Jack was panting like a horse after running a race and his balls drew up so tight there wasn’t much there left to lick by the time Ennis had made his excruciating journey all over them, and then, godalmightygood, his tongue hit the base of Jack’s dick. 

“Jesus Christ!”

It seemed to take a hundred years for Ennis to make his way to where Jack would have given a million dollars to have his man’s mouth, but finally there he was, finally the flat of his tongue reached the head of Jack’s dick, and for a second or two Jack seriously thought he was going to pass out. 

He lifted his head from the ground, as much as he could while still holding himself open for what Ennis was doing to him, to gasp out, “Suck me, you bastard, suck me!” 

Ennis pulled off his dick and Jack moaned, but then Ennis looked up at him, licking his lips, and forced Jack’s legs even wider with thumbs pushing against his inner thighs. He looked at Jack like a storm rolling in across the wide plains, savage and free and nothing-could-stop-it. 

Jack moaned again and fell back against the sheet. 

“I’ll suck you when I’m fucking ready to,” Ennis growled. 

“Oh, yeah?” Jack said to the sky. “When’s that gonna be, next Thursday? You’re killing me here.” 

“What I’m aiming for.”

And that shithead did it again. And again. And again he licked that long journey from asshole to dick. Jack took it like a man, wondering what he’d done to deserve being tortured like this, and wondering what he could do for it to happen again soon. He threw his arm over his eyes but that didn’t help. He grabbed at the sheet with his other hand, digging down into the dirt below with his fingernails but that didn’t help, and finally he couldn’t stand it another second. He couldn’t stay still like Ennis had told him. He shot upright and was at him, Ennis-in-the-forest, hardly knowing what he was going to do but it seemed Ennis did. A couple of pounding heartbeats later they were spread out head to toe. Jack shoved his dick in Ennis’s mouth where it goddamned belonged, and he took in Ennis’s dick with a hungry sound, completing the circle that they’d been really from the beginning.

Jack reached the top at the same second Ennis did, sweet jets of come hitting the back of his throat, sending the same into Ennis. 

Coming down from the heights, coming up from the depths, staring at the sky through the leaves and maybe understanding for the first time in his life how big it really was. After clouds uncounted had passed before his sight, Jack turned himself around and was pulled close. He fell asleep in Ennis’s arms. 

*****

Jack Twist was sleeping, and Ennis Del Mar, he was watching Jack sleep.

They’d closed their eyes after making love in the open air, not just Ennis the way he normally did, but Jack too. The sun had crested the mountains that surrounded the valley hours before. Ennis should be down at the stable, and he knew it. Trouble was in the pasture, swishing his tail, undoubtedly wondering where Ennis was. Well, here he was, up on his elbow looking down at his man as he lay on his back like an angel, breathing in and breathing out.

Morgan was coming by with Janice tomorrow, and Ennis knew that too. There was a powerful urge in him to get up and go to where he needed to be, but there was a more powerful need in him that kept him where he was. He touched Jack’s hair with his fingertips and let them rest there a bit. In the hush of the morning, broken only by him taking in air and Jack doing the same, it almost felt like he was doing something holy, and mysterious. 

Ennis ran his hand forward, pushing strands off Jack’s forehead until they were peeking between his fingers. He pushed from front to back and then did it again. Ennis smiled in the soft light that came from above. Not so much holy, maybe, but petting Jack like he was a horse or a dog. He’d object to that for sure, but…. Why not? Ennis felt a warm feeling when it was him and a horse he was fond of, like he’d felt for Samson or Delilah, the first horses he’d worked with and trained on his own, and he sure as hell felt more for Jack. He didn’t need to tell his thoughts on the subject, did he? That way Jack wouldn’t bitch about it.

Jack stirred like he was halfway waking, but Ennis didn’t stop what he was doing. Jack’s hair was thick, always had been, maybe even thicker now with the wiry gray shooting through it. Ennis liked the fact that he’d missed a haircut. It gave more for him to play with. 

He’d been married to Alma Beers for years, and he couldn’t recall a time he’d awakened with her beside him and wanted to touch her like this. He’d always thought she was pretty, but not like Jack was handsome. He was one good-looking man. He was smart, knew how to talk to people, had a good job, and knew how to tell jokes. Ennis paused. Apparently, Jack knew how to dance, when Ennis had always faked it. Any other queer man looking at Jack, knowing him, he’d have to be dead below the belt not to want what Ennis had right now. The coach wanted him, Ennis was sure of that, even though Jack made noises about them being friends only. Randall Malone sure wished he still had him. Ennis wasn’t any fool and could read the signs. 

But Jack…. He wanted Ennis Del Mar.

Ennis shook his head. Enough time had passed between them and enough truths had been told over the last months that a man would think he’d be used to the idea by now. 

He hitched closer, moving carefully, his front up against Jack’s side now. The kiss he pressed on Jack’s lips was like a whisper, or maybe a prayer. Those lips…. He wanted to lose himself in the warm feeling created between his mouth and Jack’s. That desire sure was different from the sex-need that had driven him a while ago, when he’d done that licking thing. That had driven both of them nuts and strained his patience to the breaking point. He’d damn near attacked Jack at the end, wanting to get them together. This need now was softer but surely as strong: being here with Jack, wanting him in all the other ways that they hadn’t just had each other. This feeling kept Ennis tied to his side even when the horses were calling. Before Childress...before Childress, Ennis probably would have resisted the need to be here with Jack. 

“Hmmmm,” Jack said. Ennis swallowed the sound and kept kissing, him and Jack on a makeshift bed with the sun peeking around the edges of the leaves, pouring down on the grass and the trees and the foothills leading up to the mountains. Outside the world was wide awake, and in here….

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” he murmured, pulling back to say it, and to see Jack’s eyes flutter open. 

Jack smiled at him as only Jack Twist could, making Ennis feel like a woman with butterflies in her stomach. That’s what Jack did to him. Jack reached around to the back of Ennis’s head and pulled him down. Ennis went where Jack wanted him to be, back into their kiss, his lips softening, Jack changing the hello into something more, maybe a kiss that had started a long time ago and had kept going, something that stretched backward and forward in time. Jack opened his mouth and traced Ennis’s lips with the tip of his tongue, making them tingle, but he felt even more the wild bound of deep-seated feeling inside.

By the time Jack let him go, Ennis had been kissed thoroughly. Jack looked up at him, his eyes shining. “Good morning,” he said, while he was running a finger around Ennis’s ear. “Or is it afternoon yet?”

“Don’t think so, not yet.”

Jack pulled him down into his arms, and Ennis went willingly. He rested his head against Jack’s shoulder and rode the wave of this feeling, this after-fuck looseness through his body, this after-lovemaking rightness through all his thoughts. Here in the forest where nobody could see them or even think to look for them, after making love with Jack in a special way, there wasn’t any need to worry about everything else, was there?

Jack was doing to him what he’d done when his man had been asleep, pushing his fingers through Ennis’s hair. Jack had always liked doing that. 

“You know what I haven’t done?” Jack asked.

“Nope.”

“I haven’t really thanked you for coming to Texas. Not properly. Have I?”

“Can’t recall. It doesn’t matter, though.”

“Sure it does.”

“Nope. I know it.”

“You’ve been doing a lot for me lately. All that, and now this.” Jack slid a hand down Ennis’s arm to his elbow. “Seems you’ve been doing a lot of giving, and I haven’t been doing much for you.” 

Ennis shook his head against Jack’s collarbone. “It’s okay. I don’t want to start counting stuff up, who’s done more or less, do you?”

“I guess not.”

“That’s not the way we should work.”

“Who made you so wise?”

“Besides, I bet you’ll get your turn somewhere down the line. We’ve got plenty of time for you to do for me.”

He felt the whisper-touch of Jack’s lips on his forehead. “Years,” was what he barely heard.

Ennis closed his eyes with the fleeting sight of a long, long road in front of them. A breath of air moved against his back and his backside. It was a little cool here in early September, reminding him they were both naked, reminding him of how Jack had wanted him to stand and be seen that way. Jack’s arm around him was warm, though, the only clothes he had on against being out here. 

“Ennis?” 

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want you to change, you know. I like you fine the way you are.” 

“Couldn’t prove it by me.”

Ennis’s body rocked as Jack shoved him, though not so much as to push him away from where he was comfortable. “You dickhead. I just…I just want you to be all you. Not held back by anything. You see?” 

“Maybe. I hope you’re not talking about the horses holding me back, cause you gotta know, after we get something for lunch I’m gonna go back out to them.” 

“I know, you’ve got things to do. I could go into work this afternoon, since I sure have enough to do there. Maybe, after that…. I could swing by and pick you up, and we could go out someplace to dinner.”

“We ate out plenty when we were away.”

“I know we did. I still want to go out tonight. We could go to that Mexican restaurant we found after the auction, remember?” 

Ennis opened his eyes. Jack’s chest stretched in front of him, his nipples not raised now but flat, and then there was the sheet Ennis had put down on the ground as the sun was rising, and then the treehouse Ponderosa beyond. He hoped Jack had forgotten any notions he had of climbing up there. Fool Jack, he was always wanting too much, to climb too far, and it was a good thing that Ennis was here on the ground to catch him if he fell. 

“Early on when I was out here, I saw some deer,” Ennis said, wanting time to think about the dinner thing. 

Jack went along with him delaying. “Yeah? How many?”

“Not sure, cause most were off before I got close. I mainly saw their tails flashing. But one buck stayed behind a couple seconds. Seemed he was checking me out.” 

“That must have been that big one I saw here last month. Well-grown, with a nice set of antlers?”

“Probably. They’ve got their territory, and I suppose this place is part of his.”

“Yeah.” Jack put his free hand, the one not holding Ennis, up behind his head. “I really like this land for that. That we’ve got this forest and the pasture out back, the deer and the horses. Even those vultures. Though it’s true the house is sort of ass backward.” 

“I know. It ain’t what you’re used to.” Ennis shifted, suddenly reminded of the way Jack used to live. “You sure all this is okay? Being just with me?” Abruptly, he sat up, so they weren’t touching anymore. “You real sure you don’t mind being tied down?”

The sound of a breeze came to him, and the chittering of a squirrel far off. And then he felt Jack’s hand on the small of his back. 

“I thought we already established that.”

Ennis shrugged. There’d been that mark on Jack’s face that he’d got in San Antonio. That had been on his mind the last few days, and it was tough to shake it. He didn’t know what Jack had meant when he said he’d almost fallen off a cliff in San Antonio, but he had a suspicion it concerned the coach. 

“You tied me down a little while ago with only a couple of words,” Jack said, “telling me not to move.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know.” Jack sat up too, and scooted over until they were side by side. “I…it’s not really being tied down, not the way I see it. It’s…it’s more like being set free, to live here with you.”

“Some folks might not see it that way. They’d say it’s like being in a cage, like the animals at the preserve we saw.” 

“If this is a cage, I don’t see any bars. Do you?” Jack leaned against his side, not rocking him, but coming close and staying there.

“No,” Ennis said, meaning it. “I don’t.” Jack against him felt fine. 

“Then you know why I feel the same. So, what do you say, am I going to eat by myself tonight? Those are good enchiladas you’ll be missing.” 

Dinner out wasn’t gonna kill him, he supposed.

“Okay,” Ennis said. “I’ll go.”

*****

They drove back from Taos that evening in the fading daylight, to find that there was a truck not their own sitting in their driveway. 

As they jounced closer to it, Ennis scowled for a couple seconds, all his muscles tense, but then he relaxed when he recognized it. “It’s okay,” he said. “That’s Floyd’s.”

Him and Jack got out of the F-150, and Ennis spotted the old man coming toward them from down by the stable; he was hard to make out in the twilight. But it was Floyd all right, broad shoulders and scarf on his head and all, and he raised a hand in hello as he got closer. 

“Hey, Ennis,” Floyd said. “I hope you don’t mind I stopped by. I thought you might be down with the horses.”

“Naw, me and Jack were….” Ennis’s mouth went dry, cause he just then realized…. “….me and Jack were out for dinner. Uh, Floyd, you remember Jack. He….” Sometimes life had a way of rushing at a person, and Ennis only had a second or two to decide what to do. “He lives here with me,” he finished, cringing inside, but what the hell else was he supposed to say? He looked at Floyd and felt sick, waiting for what he’d say or do.

“Is that so?” Floyd said with a grin that told his explanation hadn’t really been needed. 

Shit, Floyd had known all along. Maybe BJ had opened her big mouth or Floyd had figured out Ennis’s living arrangements on his own. It shouldn’t be any surprise. Ennis had thought maybe that was the case, but even so…. What was done was done, and now here was another person who knew about him and Jack for sure. Floyd held out his hand, and while Ennis looked on, Jack didn’t waste any time shaking it. 

“Good to see you again,” Jack said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Can you stay and visit for a while? I could get us some beers.”

“No beer for me,” Floyd said. “I’m an alcoholic.” 

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know that,” Jack said, throwing Ennis a glance that said _why didn’t you tell me?_

Ennis shrugged, pretending he wasn’t shook up inside, but after all this was just Floyd. Besides, it wasn’t his job to keep Jack up on everything in the world. 

“Uh…Ennis, we got anything else to drink in the refrigerator?”

“It’s okay,” Floyd said. “I stopped by the store, so there’s some Dr Pepper in my truck. If you’ve got some ice?” 

Fifteen minutes later the three of them were sitting on the kitchen chairs that they’d dragged outside under the stars. Ennis had remembered how he’d done that with Floyd before over on Huggins Road, and he thought it might be a good idea. Though maybe part of that was feeling uncomfortable with having Floyd in the house. Outside was better. It was okay here, and it almost seemed natural, him and Jack and Floyd on a Saturday night in the yard. It was cool with the sun gone, but that was okay. Ennis didn’t mind the temperature, and Jack and Floyd were gabbing at each other so much they probably didn’t even notice. 

Jack was drinking Bud, Floyd had his soft drink, and Ennis was clutching a bottle of Corona in his hand. The outside lights of the house had gone on automatically a couple minutes before, creating a circle of brightness around where they were sitting by the side door. The trucks threw heavy shadows onto the grass. Ennis had kept his eyes open for any deer that decided to come and visit, but so far he hadn’t seen any. He knew they were out there, though, especially that big buck that Jack had told him he’d followed that time, and that Ennis had seen too. The deer seemed to be fearless. Ennis spared a thought to wonder if it would survive the hunting season.

That afternoon, he’d let the pinto out into the back field for the first time, but only for a couple hours. Now the horse was back in his stall, where Ennis could keep nursing him along, hoping he’d turn into something worth keeping. Trouble he had in the paddock behind the stable for Morgan and Janice to see on Sunday; Ennis had done all he could do with that horse, and if it wasn’t enough, well…. Well, he’d keep on trying, if the man would give him the go-ahead, and if Janice liked Trouble. Maybe she’d give him a better name. The horse deserved it. He wasn’t really all that much trouble. 

Ennis let his gaze wander over to where Jack was sitting with one ankle thrown over a knee. Floyd had said he was sorry that Lureen had passed on, and Jack had thanked him, and from there the two of them had smoothed into conversation like they were long lost brothers. Ennis didn’t know how that sort of thing happened, how people were that easy with each other when he’d never been able to talk like that, but he didn’t mind listening to Jack. He was explaining to Floyd how the feedlot worked, how he didn’t get along too well with his boss, and every other thing in the world that occurred to him to spill out of his mouth. Jack looked happy, and Ennis was glad to see it. He thought maybe that was cause Jack liked having the company. He remembered the friends who’d gone up to Jack at the funeral home. Or maybe it was cause of the morning him and Jack had spent together, not too bad, or the dinner they’d had in Taos, where Jack had shown Ennis what fajitas were and proved they were fine to eat. 

He tilted on the two back legs of the chair and looked up at the sky, where clouds were building up to the north. The nip in the air told that summer was ending and fall was coming on them: a change of seasons. That was okay, but he didn’t want things to change much here in Eagle Nest, not between him and Jack. He remembered how mad he’d been a couple weeks ago when they’d fought, and he knew Jack had been the same. All those things they’d been red hot about, they still mattered, but it seemed to him they’d found a way through them to where they were now, which was pretty good. 

Ennis became aware that the talking had come to a halt, and he looked over at Floyd and Jack to find they were looking at him. “What?” he asked, and he brought the chair back down to the ground. He took a slug of beer.

“Nothing,” Floyd said. 

“What’re you smiling at?” Jack asked him.

“Me? I ain’t smiling.” 

“Most folks would agree, but I call that look on your face a smile.”

Trapped, Ennis lifted the bottle to his lips again, drank, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve when he was finished. “I was thinking on the hawk Floyd has.” 

“And?”

“And nothing. That’s it. Was just thinking on it.” 

Floyd left not long afterward, and Ennis went down to the stable for one last check of the horses. When he got back, Jack had put the house to bed and was already under the sheet with the lights out. Ennis did his thing in the bathroom, walked around through the front room to the bedroom, and got into his side, shoving aside the covers. He pounded on the pillow and then settled on his back with his arm propping up his head. He couldn’t see much with his eyes, but he sure saw a lot behind them. 

Things with Floyd had gone okay. It seemed Floyd was gonna let him being queer pass, and they could keep on the way they were. He felt some powerful relief that the Indian hadn’t treated him like L.D. had or the way he feared O’Hara would, whenever he saw the man again. There were surely men like them all over. Maybe as time passed he’d meet more of them, and there wouldn’t be peace for him in the valley anymore. 

But Floyd wasn’t like that. Rocky wasn’t either. Ennis scratched the side of his face and wondered about the boys. Tag and Matt, they were both brought up the right way, but look how Tag was sneaking around, stealing stuff and undoubtedly doing drugs. There was no telling if he’d stopped. Ennis would have to keep his eyes open even though school had started and there should be less chance for the boy to get in trouble. 

Of course, Davey didn’t really count when worrying about whether the boys would turn on him if they ever found out about him and Jack. Davey was just who he was, the little guy who wanted to be lifted into the air and who sat on Ennis’s lap. He took Ennis as he was too, no judging. Neither one of them was able to kick against the way they were. Though Ennis wondered about Davey’s future, and these heart problems he had. But none of that was his business, was it? 

Jack was his business. Ennis rolled over toward where Jack was quiet, probably halfway to sleep already. It didn’t seem right that Corliss Hamilton had put the hammer down because of Jack being away. After giving Jack that big raise, the boss should have been more on his side, but instead he’d sent Jack to San Antonio when he should have let him take over the lot for a couple days. Ennis fretted, cause it would hurt Jack’s pride bad if this job didn’t work out. 

“I can hear you worrying all the way over here,” came a voice out of the darkness.

Sometimes it seemed Jack knew his thoughts. “Oh, yeah?” 

Real quick, Jack rolled over on top of him. Ennis held him with hands on his hips, and a sigh came out of him that he hadn’t meant to let out, a sigh of satisfaction because Jack’s weight on him felt like the best there was. A man’s weight to hold him down where he belonged, to steady him, and then Jack’s kisses to send him up high, crazy like he’d been this morning. In the forest he hadn’t let all these other life-things worry him, had he? Nothing else had mattered but him and Jack together. That’s why he was here in Eagle Nest, why he was willing to put up with all the shit: it was all about this man -- who he sure hoped he could keep with him, happy and smiling. He sure hoped he could make life good for him, cause Jack deserved all that. 

Besides…. Everything, all ways, was better with Jack. Everything. He shivered to consider not living with him. No way. 

Ennis ran his hands over the curve of Jack’s ass -- touching him there, anywhere, so fine -- past the dimple in his lower back, up to his shoulders and then to his favorite place, holding Jack’s face close to his, where he could feel Jack breathing on him.

“I love you,” he choked out, easy to say at the same time as it was hard, but the feeling inside of him needed to come out with those words. They were true, and he felt them. He meant them.

But then he realized that it was the second time in one day he’d said it, after not saying it for months. Maybe Jack didn’t want such a pansy-assed, soft-hearted, womanly man in his bed. He’d said he didn’t want Ennis to change….

“Ennis,” Jack whispered, and Jack kissed him. 

Then there wasn’t anything in Ennis that didn’t fly. Everything was all right. Fuck the rest of the world. They were gonna be all right.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: I will start posting the sequel to this novel, which is FORCE OF NATURE: STORM, in six to eight weeks, sometime in July. I’ll be happy to respond to comments and questions before I start posting again.
> 
> Thanks so much to all readers; I hope you’ve enjoyed this story! Special thanks to all those who have left comments, suggestions, and helpful topics for discussion. I have loved each word you’ve given me, and I appreciate your support and encouragement more than I can say. 
> 
> See you soon!  
> Love,  
> Jenna


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